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PLAIN THOUGHTS 



ART OF LIVING; 



DESIGNED FOR 



YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN. 



BY 



WASHINGTON GLADDEN. * 




BOSTON: 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
I 87 I. 






~£3 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 

TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 

Cambridge, 









PREFACE, 



TV IT OST of these essays were originally de 
i-VX livered as lectures to young men and 
women. They were afterward rewritten and 
printed in the Springfield Republican, under 
the title "Plain Talks with Young Folks in a 
Parson's Study." This statement will explain, 
though it may not excuse, their colloquial style, 
and their somewhat magisterial tone. 

As elsewhere printed, these homilies have 
been received with all the favor they deserve. 
The author desires, in this place, to make grate- 
ful acknowledgment of the many kind words 
concerning them which have come to him from 
strangers, and to express the hope that the more 
permanent form which is now given them 
may serve to enlarge and confirm their useful- 
ness. 

North Adams, July 8, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 

♦ 

FAGB 

I. The Messenger without a Message . . i 

II. Work for Women 15 

III. Dress . . . . . . . .31 

IV. Manners * . 46 

V. Conversation 60 

VI. Habits 73 

VII. Health and Physical Culture . . .91 

VIII. Mind Culture 105 

IX. Success 121 

X. Stealing as a Fine Art .... 134 

XL Companionship and Society . . • . 154 

XII. Amusement 169 

XIII. Respectability and Self-Respect . . .187 

XIV. Marriage . 204 

XV. The Conclusion of the Whole Matter ,. 222 






PLAIN THOUGHTS GN THE ART 
OF LIVING. 



THE MESSENGER WITHOUT A MESSAGE. 

" But, howsoever, said he, let me run." — 2 Sam. xviii. 23. 

THIS young man who is so anxious to run bears 
the not very euphonious name of Ahimaaz, the 
son of Zadok. Zadok his father was a priest of 
some renown in the ancient city of Jerusalem. 
Ahimaaz himself belonged to the army of Joab, 
commander-in-chief of the forces of King David. 
How valiant a soldier he was in battle we have 
no means of knowing. The sequel shows that he 
was well qualified to lead a retreat. The incident 
in his life of which we are speaking is the only 
notable one we find recorded. It is a short story, 
but very suggestive. Little did Ahimaaz, the son 
of Zadok, think, when he petitioned Joab thus ear- 
nestly for the privilege of running, that his name 
would travel so far down the ages. Little did he 
dream, when he started to run, that he was dragging 
a moral after him ! But you are waiting for the 
story. 



2 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

Know, then, that the scene of this incident is a 
mountainous region on the east bank of the Jordan, 
about midway between the Dead Sea and the Sea 
of Galilee. The great battle between the rebels 
under Absalom and the loyal forces under Joab 
has just been fought, resulting in the total rout 
of the rebels and the death of Absalom by a ca- 
lamity you all very well remember. The rest of the 
story I shall extract bodily from the Old Testa- 
ment : — 

"Then said Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, Let me 
run and bear the king tidings, how that the Lord 
hath avenged him of his enemies. And Joab said 
unto him, Thou shalt not bear tidings this day, 
but thou shalt bear tidings another day. Then 
said Joab to Cushi, Go tell the king what thou 
hast seen. And Cushi bowed himself unto Joab 
and ran. Then said Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, 
yet again to Joab, But, howsoever, let me, I pray 
thee, also run after Cushi. And Joab said, Where- 
fore wilt thou run, my son, seeing thou hast no 
tidings ready? But, howsoever, said he, let me 
run. And he said unto him, Run. [I imagine 
that Joab jerked out that 'Run' rather impatiently.] 
Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and 
overran Cushi. And David sat between the two 
gates [this was in the little city of Mahanaim, where 



The Messenger without a Message. 3 

the king was awaiting the result of the encounter] \ 
and the watchman went up to the roof over the 
gate unto the wall, and lifted up his eyes and 
looked, and behold, a man running alone. And 
the watchman cried and told the king. And the 
king said, If he be alone there is tidings in his 
mouth. And he came apace and drew near. And 
the watchman saw another man running; and the 
watchman called unto the porter and said, Behold 
another man also running alone. And the king said, 
He also bringeth tidings. And the watchman saith, 
Methinketh the running of the foremost is like the 
running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok. And the 
king said, He is a good man and bringeth good 
tidings. [The bad logic of an anxious mind.] And 
Ahimaaz called and said unto the king, All is well. 
And he fell down to the earth on his face before 
the king and said, Blessed be the Lord thy God, 
which hath delivered up the men that lifted up 
their hand against my lord the king. And the king 
said, Is the young man Absalom safe ? And Ahi- 
maaz answered, When Joab sent the king's servant, 
and me, thy servant, I saw a great tumult, but I 
knew not what it was. And the king said unto him, 
Turn aside and stand here. And he turned aside 
and stood still. And behold Cushi came, and Cushi 
said, Tidings, my lord the king, for the Lord hath 



4 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

avenged thee this day of all them that rose up 
against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the 
young man Absalom safe ? And Cushi answered, 
The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise 
against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is ! " 

How natural is this story ! It carries its creden- 
tials upon its face. Cushi was the messenger who 
understood his errand. How delicately and ju- 
diciously he breaks the unwelcome tidings to the 
king. But Ahimaaz, poor fellow! what shall we say 
about him? We see him standing, all blown and 
sweaty before the king, after his long, fruitless race, 
in utter dismay and confusion, having just found 
out that he was totally ignorant of that which the 
king desired most to hear : his piteous plight moves 
our sympathy, and yet most of us will be wicked 
enough to laugh at him. The history is the very 
best of comedy ; and I think our dear good fathers, 
whose consciences would not let them laugh at 
folly, must have been sorely exercised, when they 
came to this passage, in their regular reading of the 
Scriptures. 

Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok, the messenger with- 
out a message, is the type of a large class which 
has its representatives in all the generations. The 
world is full of messengers without messages, and 
laborers without occupations, and soldiers without 



The Messenger without a Message. 5 

campaigns, and teachers without doctrines ! How 
many aimless lives are lived ! How many a man 
spends his days u in laboriously doing nothing," as 
Grotius said ; going down to his rest in the grave 
wearied out with toil from 'which no visible issue 
of good has come ; ending, unhappily, 

" A life of nothings, nothing worth, 
From that first nothing ere his birth 
To that last nothing under earth." 

Thousands live and die without any fixed purpose. 
All are eager to embark, but many know not whither 
they are going • all are ready to run, but many know 
not how far nor for what purpose. Young men grow 
impatient of parental restraint ; they catch the in- 
fectious restlessness of the world, and long to cut 
loose from the safe moorings of home and launch out 
into independence. They have no well-considered 
plans of life, only a vague craving for liberty, as if 
that, in itself, were a thing to be desired. They 
witness the exciting strife, and are eager to enter 
the lists. They do not stop to ask whether they 
have their tidings ready ; " Howsoever," they say, 
"let us run." And starting thus in random courses 
across the field of life, they are very much at the 
mercy of circumstance or caprice. Impetuous and 
vigorous, they travel at a rapid rate in some direc- 



6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

tion ; if good angels guide them, they may reach 
eminent usefulness and honor; if bad spirits seduce 
them, they go swiftly down to poverty and infamy. 

Young men without a life-work in prospect, into 
which they can pour their enthusiasm, and to which 
they can yoke their passionate strength, are at sea 
along a dangerous coast without a rudder. Many 
of the poor wretches you see every day in the 
streets, ragged and filthy, — their physical health 
ruined, their self-respect lost, their moral sense 
blunted, and their hopes gone out in the blackness 
of darkness, are wrecks that the gales of temptation 
have driven upon that coast. I cannot say how 
many of them would have escaped this ruin if they 
had fixed upon a lawful calling in their youth, and 
had devoted to it the strength of their lives, but I 
believe that it would have been the salvation of a 
large share of them. The possession of an occupa- 
tion in which he can take interest and pride is a 
strong safeguard against the perils of wickedness 
which threaten a young man. A large share of 
the crime and poverty about us can be traced back 
to the objectless lives of the criminals and paupers. 
Idleness is not the only accursed thing. Aimless- 
ness is an evil equally worthy of execration. The 
object of this chapter, young men, is to warn you 
against this dangerous manner of living, and to 



The Messenger without a Message. 7 

urge upon you the choice of some worthy calling. 
I would counsel you to select your course wisely ; 
to have an errand, and to know it well before you 
start. I would save you from the fate of those 
thousands who loiter along through the best part 
of their lives, waiting, like the immortal Micawber, 
for something to "turn up." You have seen them 
lolling around the corner-groceries and the bar-rooms 
of the hotels, and wherever there is a place to lean 
and lounge, ready for anything that presents it- 
self, and so constantly drawn into the ways of vice 
and dissipation ; for when a young man has no 
regular occupation, he generally finds plenty of em- 
ployment in doing odd jobs for the Devil. 

In a true social system every man will have some 
definite avocation. God never designed that there 
should be a rich and aristocratic class who should 
live at their ease and employ as their servants men 
and women of inferior social and intellectual worth. 
The Southern Confederacy was built upon that theory, 
but it did not stand long, simply because it was 
built on a bad foundation. The true social law was 
laid down by the Great Teacher when he said : " Ye 
know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise do- 
minion over them, and they that are great exercise 
authority upon them; but it shall not be so among 
you ; but whosoever will be great among you let 



8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

him be your minister, and whosoever will be chief 
among you let him be your servant. Even as the 
Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to 
minister, and give his life a ransom for many." 
According to this there is no right living but the 
life of labor and service ; and the only aristocracy 
to be recognized is an aristocracy of industry and 
charity. And no matter what the circumstances of a 
young man may be, he is just as much bound to have 
a regular business, and to work at it industriously, 
as he is to keep the laws and pay his taxes. Va- 
grancy is an offence under the laws of all well- 
ordered societies. One who has no settled dwelling 
and no visible means of support may be arrested 
and sent to the workhouse. The law of vagrancy 
is not generally enforced against well-dressed vaga- 
bonds, but I wish it might be ! I see no reason 
why the wearing of good clothes should exempt a 
man from deserved punishment. Society does not 
attempt, by laws and penalties, to compel young 
men of property to find something to do, but it 
has a valid claim upon every man for a life of 
industry, and this claim should be enforced by 
public opinion. A rich young man without an 
avocation is a greater nuisance in society than the 
sturdy beggar. 

There is no excuse for aimlessness. Ample fields 



The Messenger without a Message. 9 

of opportunity ripe and ready for the sickle stretch 
away on either side your path, and God is calling 
you to enter in and reap. While whole townships 
and territories of fertile soil are lying waste ; while 
untold millions of mineral wealth are hidden under- 
ground ; while mountains of crude material are wait- 
ing for the fashioning hand of industry to give them 
value ; while traffic offers to honesty employment and 
reward ; while humanity with its countless physical 
ills calls for help and healing ; while ignorance is 
groping for the light, and the bondsmen of prejudice 
and selfishness and lust are pleading for liberty, — 
who will complain of nothing to do ? 

The wastefulness of the aimless life is one of its 
worst evils. If a man has plenty of money and 
nothing to do, he has nothing to do but to spend 
his money ; and it is apt to go freely for all manner 
of foolish extravagances. The fingers of the idler 
are always busy with his purse-strings. One who 
has no steady employment is certain to have a vast 
array of whimsical wants, the satisfaction of which 
involves waste and often something worse. 

But the waste of material riches is not so bad as 
the waste of time and talent. If you live this 
Bedouin life, you accomplish nothing. To effect 
anything valuable you must work with design and 
system. A man may be active and industrious, as 



io Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

many aimless men are, but if he have no steady 
life plan his work will be wasted. Suppose one man 
should be set down in the midst of a vast wilderness, 
furnished with seeds and implements of labor, and 
instructed to do what he could in his life to reclaim 
and cultivate it. And suppose he should start out 
with an axe and a hoe and a pocketful of seeds, 
and go wandering in an aimless way through the 
wilderness all his life ; chopping down a tree in 
one place, and pulling up a brier in another, and 
putting in a seed in another, always hard at work, 
but not confining his labors for any length of time 
to any one place, — how many traces would there 
be of all his industry in the wilderness when his 
life was ended ? But if he should mark out for 
himself in some favorable locality some rational 
boundaries within which he would expend his labor, 
he might accomplish something. Thorns and briers 
would give place, under his well-directed toil, to 
fruitfulness and beauty, and one corner of the wil- 
derness would bud and blossom as the rose. Such 
is the waste of random industry, and such the result 
of well-planned work. 

Power as well as labor is wasted by living aim- 
lessly. Some controlling purpose is needed to give 
strength and symmetry to your character. Without 
such a purpose your mental faculties will dwindle 



The Messenger without a Message. 1 1 

and deteriorate. A man without a definite purpose 
in life is like a watch without a mainspring. 

Some of you have already made choice of a 
calling, and have entered upon it. I hope you have 
chosen wisely, and that you will honor your voca- 
tion, whatever it may be. Others have the choice 
to make, and are puzzled to make it. It is an im- 
portant question, and should not be hastily decided. 
Your usefulness and happiness are to a great ex- 
tent dependent upon its decision. My counsel is, 
that you choose the work you love best. Of course 
I would have you confine your choice within the 
limits of honesty and usefulness. Within these 
limits I am quite willing to trust candid young men 
to the guidance of their own tastes, and as for the 
uncandid ones there is no use whatever in giving 
them advice. Capacity is always found in the line 
of inclination. The work which one likes he can 
usually do well ; and the work which he likes best 
he can usually do best. No work is really well 
done which is not done con amore. It might be 
said, perhaps, that some people do not like work 
of any kind. A farmer's boy, whom I once knew, 
used to say there were only four things that he did 
not like to do. He did not like to thrash, nor 
turn grindstone, nor saw wood, nor work. If any 
of you are like him in your tastes, my counsel will 



12 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

need to be slightly varied in order to fit your cases. 
To such I should say, choose the work you dislike 
least. If every kind of work is an evil, you will at 
least have a preference among evils. 

If you permit yourselves to be guided by your 
tastes in this decision, you must be certain that it 
is the calling itself you choose, and not the ap- 
parent rewards of the calling. A young man may 
imagine that he has a peculiar fondness for the 
mercantile business, when, in fact, it is only the 
wealth that the merchant sometimes amasses which 
captivates him. What he is looking at is the brown- 
stone front and the carriage with the liveried lackeys, 
and the deference of mammon-worshipping fools. 
Because many merchants contrive to get these, he 
wants to be a merchant. He does not once ask 
himself whether he has a natural fondness for trade ; 
whether the field of bustling enterprise is one in 
which he would feel at home ; whether he is fond 
of studying the peculiarities of men, in order that 
he may adapt himself to all dispositions ; whether 
he can sagaciously devise measures, and then wait 
for them to mature. To certain dispositions this 
would be agreeable work, to others it would be 
irksome. And it is this which you must be certain 
that you prefer, — the work, and not its reward. 

Others imagine that the legal profession would 



The Messenger without a Message. 1 3 

suit them, when really they are only thinking of the 
extensive practice and. the liberal fees of the lawyer, 
or the avenues leading to political station and re- 
nown which are open to men in his profession. 
They do not ask whether the lawyer's work will 
be acceptable to them ; whether the investigation 
of abstruse legal principles, or the unravelling of 
tangled evidence, or the discovery of analogies and 
precedents, is a business for w r hich they have a 
natural aptitude. 

Perhaps some of you have thought the farmer's 
life would be a pleasant life ; but was it the farmer's 
independence, his flocks and his herds, and the 
dainties the earth affords him, that attracted you, 
or have you such a fondness for "green things 
growing" that you could willingly spend your life 
in the husbandman's toil ? Would you really count 
it a luxury " to plough and to sow, to reap and to 
mow " ? If you could, there are millions of fertile 
acres waiting to give you welcome and good cheer. 

The phrenologists advertise that they can guide 
every man infallibly in the choice of his calling, 
and perhaps they can, but I must own myself a 
sceptic. It does not seem to be clear that men's 
bumps are always conformable to their brains ; and, 
on the whole, I think you can more safely trust the 
report of your own brains than the report of some- 



14 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

body else about your bumps. If you will let reason 
and taste unite to make this decision for you, you 
will not be likely to go far astray. Doubtless there 
will always be mistakes in this matter, but I cannot 
help thinking that if natural appetencies were more 
closely followed, and men were less frequently led 
into their callings by thoughts of worldly gain or 
by morbid notions of duty, the world would be 
happier and better. Every man ought to be an 
enthusiast in his calling. No man has any business 
to be in a work to which he is driven by goads of 
obligation or cupidity. Find the right thing to do, 
young men, and then do it with all your might. 



II. 

WORK FOR WOMEN. 

MISS ANNA DICKINSON demands that poor 
women shall have " something to do." There 
is need that somebody should make the same de- 
mand in behalf of women who are not poor. Un- 
doubtedly the conditions of society which this noble 
woman so eloquently bewails are to be greatly la- 
mented ; but let us save part of our tears for those 
unfortunate women in the higher circles of society 
who have nothing to'do. 

Not long ago I read in some newspaper of fashion 
an elaborate argument to prove that women ought 
not to work. The writer did not seem to think that 
work was dishonorable ; but in his view it marred 
the beauty and delicacy of women, and therefore 
they ought not to engage in it. His notion was that 
women ought to be kept as you keep wax flowers, 
under a glass cover ; that they ought to be fed upon 
honey and whipped syllabub, and handled with the 
utmost caution. . This doctrine has had many vo- 
taries, but few advocates. The practice of a large 
number of women has been in accordance with this 



1 6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

theory ; but not many persons of either sex have had 
the hardihood to promulgate and defend the theory. 
I have no doubt the dexterous logic of this hyper- 
chivalrous young man carried comfort to the foolish 
women of our fashionable society, who live in idle- 
ness, and whose consciences must sometimes upbraid 
them for their manner of living. The young ladies 
of what is called the best society have commonly 
been educated in accordance with this theory. 
They have been taught just as few useful things as 
possible, and just as many of the superficialities as 
they had patience to learn ; the solid branches of 
education have been stricken from their courses 
of study, because they required too much work ; the 
dear delicate creatures must not be encouraged to 
think much, lest their mental faculties should gain 
some vigor, and they should become obnoxious to 
the terrible charge of masculinity. So with regard 
to practical life. They have not been trained for 
any useful occupation; even housewifery has been 
under the ban of fashionable opinion. Some fash- 
ionable young ladies, it is true, have learned to do 
housework ; but part of them have concealed the fact 
because they were ashamed of it ; and others have 
boasted of it as if it were a kind of eccentricity. 
There have been many excellent families in the 
higher circles, in which a different practice has pre- 



Work for Women. 1 7 

vailed; but they have been exceptions to the gen- 
eral rule. 

I do not think that this treatment of young women 
has always been based upon the theory that work is 
dishonorable. There has not been much theorizing 
on the subject; but the main reason of it has been 
the notion referred to, that physical labor and mental 
activity destroy the bloom and tenderness of the fair 
creatures, and make them less " interesting " and 
captivating to men. It is for aesthetical, and not 
moral, reasons that women have been forbidden to 
work. De gustibus non est disputandum. So far as 
it is a question of taste, there is no use in quarrelling 
about it. If any one thinks that young women who 
grow up under this hot-house culture, with tender 
and fragile bodies, and weak and shallow minds, are 
more beautiful and engaging than those who have 
gained both for their bodies and their minds some 
vigor by the discipline of work, he is not only wel- 
come to his opinion, but, so far as I am concerned, he 
is welcome to as many young ladies of the former 
class as he will keep and care for. I don't think he 
will be able to manage more than one. As a mere 
matter of taste, however, it seems to me that a girl 
whose frame has been strengthened by a rational 
amount of physical activity, and whose cheek wears 
the bloom of a fresh and vigorous life, is far more 

B 



1 8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

beautiful than the pale, frail lily of the boudoir. 
Frederick Robertson has said in one of his letters 
all that I want to say, and I shall quote him : — 

"I must acknowledge the truth of what you say, 
in the main, that I do not admire any one who is not 
in robust health. Of course, I must bate a little ex- 
aggeration in the form of statement ; but I acknowl- 
edge that I think health more beautiful than ill- 
health, and a normal state more pleasant than an 
abnormal. There may be some apparent exceptions 
to the rule, as in the case of recovery from illness 
there is a certain delicacy which is very attractive ; 
but then it is the first flush of health which gives the 
beauty, just like that which makes spring more inter- 
esting than summer. Still, it is not merely delicacy 
that is beautiful; but delicacy pervaded by health, 
and conquered by it, — ltfe in its first fresh rising, 
like a new childhood ; but I acknowledge that I can- 
not acquire the sickly taste of admiring the delicacy 
of ill-health. Beauty, in my eyes, depends upon 
association ; and delicacy that calls up one's knowl- 
edge of morbid anatomy, and suggests the thought 
of disordered functions, and abnormal states, and 
physicians' attendance, never affects me with a sense 
of beauty. This may not be a fashionable view, but 
I am certain it is a sound and healthy one, fresh from 
nature's heart." 






Work for Women. 19 

As a matter of taste, also, it seems to me that a 
woman whose mental faculties are well trained and 
developed, who has some knowledge of affairs, and 
some opinions of her own, is more " interesting " 
than one who knows nothing beyond the narrow 
range of fashionable topics. Strong-minded women 
may not always be attractive, but I decidedly prefer 
them to the weak-minded ones. 

Nothing is more certain than that this wholesome 
vigor of body and mind are only attained by the dis- 
cipline of work. And, therefore, if woman were only 
designed for ornamental purposes, if her only mis- 
sion were to minister to the aesthetic enjoyments of 
mankind, the way to fit her for the best fulfilment 
of that design would be to give her a rational amount 
of work to do. 

But this is not merely a question of taste. I sup- 
pose that woman is designed to be something more 
than an ornament in society. Her calling is higher 
and nobler than this. She is to be a helpmeet for 
man, — his partner in useful and beneficent activity. 
The Divine Master himself said, "My Father work- 
eth hitherto and I work " ; and in the record of the 
creation we are told that God created man in his own 
image, male and female. Woman, as well as man, is 
made in the image of God, and it can hardly be ex- 
pected that she will find her highest happiness if she 



20 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

does not equally with man fulfil the divine law and 
copy the divine example by choosing for herself some 
honest and productive work. 

The law of labor is a universal law. Among 
persons who have health and reason there are no 
exempts. Wealth does not exonerate you from work, 
neither does genius, neither does beauty, neither do 
accomplishments. You can put in no plea whatever 
that will be an effectual bar to the claim that God 
has upon you for a whole life of earnest labor. 
Nothing but age or physical weakness or mental 
imbecility can release you from the obligation to 
earn your own living. No human being has any 
right to eat the bread of idleness. And yet how 
many young women there are in the circles of 
wealth and fashion who do literally eat the bread 
of idleness. They never lift a finger toward their 
own support. They never eat a morsel of food, 
they never wear a ribbon of clothing, that they 
have earned for themselves. This way of living 
is disgraceful, whoever follows it. I hope that none 
of you will ever live to see the day when you will 
not have work to do that shall occupy the larger 
share of your waking time. I hope that none of 
you will ever be compelled to labor incessantly, 
without rest or relaxation, for all work and no play 
is almost — not quite — as bad as all play and no 



Work for Women. 2 1 

work ; but you ought to have enough labor to per- 
form to give sweetness to repose and zest to recre- 
ation. 

Of course it is not absolutely essential that every 
person should be employed in manual labor ; though 
a moderate degree of that would certainly be a 
benefit. Vigorous physical exercise every woman 
ought to have, and if it can be taken in the way of 
work, so much the better. It is no disgrace to you, 
young women, to be found working with your hands. 

But there are useful avocations in which the labor 
is mental rather than manual, and these are just as 
honorable, and no more honorable, than those of 
the other class. -Young women so employed have 
no right to arrogate to themselves any pre-eminence 
over other honest workers ; neither have other honest 
workers any right to call in question the validity of 
their commission. There is sometimes a jealousy 
or misunderstanding between the two classes of 
workers, — those who labor with their brains and 
those who labor with their hands. The mental 
workers sometimes regard the manual workers as 
beneath them, and the manual workers stigmatize 
the mental workers as idlers and shirkers ; but both 
are wrong. The young woman who has chosen the 
work of teaching — whether she teaches the spelling- 
book, or the piano, or any fine art — has no right 



22 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

to assume any superiority to the house domestic or 
the factory operative, provided the latter does her 
work as conscientiously and as faithfully as the 
former. And, on the other hand, the house servant 
or the factory operative has no right to upbraid the 
teacher with disobedience to the law of labor, be- 
cause the latter labors with brain instead of muscle. 

" Honor and shame from no conditions rise : 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

And yet I dare say there are many young women, 
who would not be ashamed of teaching as a calling, 
but who would be ashamed to have it known that by 
sewing or by any other kind of manual labor they 
gained a livelihood. What a foolish shame ! And 
I am sorry to believe that there are others who are 
even ashamed to let people know that they follow 
for a livelihood a calling so respectable as that of 
teaching. I know a young lady, whose father failed 
in business, and who was obliged partly to support 
herself by teaching, and yet she so carefully covered 
her tracks, and so equivocated, when questioned about 
her whereabouts during the daytime, that many of 
her friends did not find out the fact for months. 
Perhaps there are few young women in New England 
who have such false notions concerning work, but in 
other parts of the land there are too many of them. 



Work for Women. 23 

Although they are compelled to work, they are un- 
willing that people should know that they do not 
live in idleness, fed and clothed and supported en- 
tirely by money earned for them by the hard labor 
of somebody else, — parent or ancestor or husband. 

Ashamed of work ! Ashamed to have it known 
that you earn your own living ! I tell you, young 
women, that of all the wicked and contemptible 
notions society puts into your heads, this is the 
wickedest and most contemptible. Who sent you 
into this world to sit in idleness, while all the rest 
of God's universe are at work ? Who authorized 
you to live at your ease upon the toils of other 
people ? Who gave you permission to suffer those 
natural powers of yours, which can only be devel- 
oped by work, to be dwarfed and withered by dis- 
use ? Instead of its being a disgrace to you to 
earn your living by work, it is a burning shame to 
you if you do not. 

You think I use pretty strong language. Perhaps 
I do. But I know I only half express myself. For 
it is impossible for me to find, in the English lan- 
guage or any other language, any words that begin 
to set forth the contempt I feel for any able-bodied 
human being, male or female, who attempts to live 
in this world without earning a living, either by 
orain or muscle. 



24 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

There are just two exceptions to this law. The 
one is the case of children and youth who are pur- 
suing courses of education. The other is the case 
of those persons who, possessing a competence by 
inheritance, or as the fruit of previous labor, choose 
to spend their time, not in earning their daily bread, 
but in labors of charity. No one is relieved by the 
possession of riches of the obligation to work ; but 
if you are rich, it is your right, if indeed it is not 
your duty, to turn your labors aside from the chan- 
nels of accumulation into the channels of benevo- 
lence. These, with the cases before mentioned of 
the aged, the sick, and the imbecile, are the only 
exceptions I know to the law, " In the sweat of thy 
face thou shalt eat thy bread." 

" But what shall we do ? " I hear you ask. " Noble 
avocations without number await laborers from among 
men. But what shall women do?" Whatever they 
can do well. The foolish customs of society have ex- 
cluded women from many avocations that they would 
have adorned. But it is not necessary for you to 
be governed by these antiquated whims of society. 
Modestly but earnestly claim for yourselves the right 
to do whatever work you can do well, and to re- 
ceive therefor the same wages that men receive. 
Men can help but little in this matter if you do not 
help yourselves, and when you do help yourselves 



Work for Women. 25 

there will be plenty to help you. We might have 
argued and debated for centuries about the fitness 
of women for the medical profession, without coming 
to any agreement, had not two or three women, by 
braving the prejudice against them, and toiling on 
year after year, amidst discouragement and ridicule, 
earned the diploma of the faculty, and settled the 
question. The number of those who will devote 
themselves to this calling will yearly increase ; and 
fifty years hence the world will wonder how people 
could have lived so long without female physicians. 
So it will be in other callings; but each one must 
have its pioneers, .and young women must not be 
scared from their purpose to follow the work they 
love best and can do best by that hydra-headed 
monster, Public Opinion. 

Let me not, -however, disparage in your thought 
that one particular calling, in which the larger share 
of your sex find employment, — the calling of house- 
wifery. While you may qualify yourselves to earn 
your livelihood in other fields of labor, I would not 
have you look with contempt upon this noble avoca- 
tion. For as I account the work of the husbandman 
to be the noblest of all the secular callings that men 
follow, so do I regard the work of the housewife as 
the noblest of all the callings that are open to wo- 
men. Secular, do I say? Nay, there are few call- 



26 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ings more sacred. While there is hardly another 
work that gives more scope for the mind, there is 
absolutely no other that requires a better heart 
Manual skill the most practised, scientific knowledge 
the most thorough, artistic taste the most delicate 
and exquisite, must be combined in the character of 
the ideal housewife with moral grace and gentleness 
and strength. Whoever presides over a household, 
wisely ordering its affairs and keeping its multiform 
and discordant interests in harmony, does not eat the 
bread of idleness, though but a small portion of the 
manual labor of the house be performed by her 
hands. If there is any woman on earth who earns 
her living, it is the faithful housekeeper. 

The next best place to heaven is home. The one 
is a house not made with hands, but woman is the 
architect of the other. Not of the brick w T alls and 
windows and partitions, but of the content and com- 
fort and peace, and the nameless and numberless 
other delights which we mean when we speak that 
sweet word, Home. We should have no such word 
in the language, were it not for woman. She who 
hath builded one home, who hath laid the founda- 
tions thereof in prudence, and reared upon them 
such walls of shelter and defence as can be fashioned 
of truth and integrity, and hath woven the roof of 
hospitality, and hath stored it with industry, and 



Work for Women, 2J 

warmed it with love, and lighted it with cheerfulness, 
hath created a temple whose memory shall endure 
when the proud structures of Wren and Angelo have 
returned to dust and chaos. The world has no 
higher honor to bestow upon any woman than to 
make her mistress of a happy home. The homes 
of a people are the sources of its national life. If 
they are pure and peaceful, the nation will be pros- 
perous and powerful. Thus do women take the des- 
tinies of people into their hands ; thus do they mould 
and fashion empires and republics at their will. 

When the first temple was built at Jerusalem, the 
work was all done in distant and diverse parts of the 
kingdom. Here were men chiselling stones, there 
they were carving pillars, and yonder they were fash- 
ioning capitals, so that at length, when the workmen 
had all finished their work and brought it to Jerusa- 
lem, the structure went up noiselessly, and "there was 
neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in 
the house while it was in building." So in the homes 
throughout the land, women are fashioning the pil- 
lars and ornaments and lively stones of the temple 
of society. The fabric goes up noiselessly, and the 
names of the builders are not always widely known 
in this world, but they shall have their reward when 
the kingdom that can be shaken shall pass away, and 
the kingdom that cannot be moved shall rest upon 
its everlasting foundations. 



28 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

But not only is there work for you at home. To 
you are especially intrusted the gentle ministries of 
charity and consolation. God has commissioned you 
to care for the sick and the suffering; you have a 
double endowment of the delicate tact and sympathy 
which are needed for the right performance of this 
most sacred task. In ten thousand dwellings, where 
ignorance and poverty dwell, there is work for you. 
Gather the starving children about you; and while 
you relieve their physical wants, unfold for them the 
eternal mysteries, and teach them what life is and 
what are its duties and its promises. You do not 
know what wreaths of blessing are blossoming for 
you in these lowly places ! You do not know what 
sweet incense of gratitude might ascend to the throne 
of the All-merciful, bringing down gladness upon your 
heads ! Are not the sincere benedictions of Christ's 
poor worth more to you than the compliments of 
curled and jewelled dandies? 

In the church of the living God there is work for 
you. He has sent you to preach the Gospel in the 
silences of domestic life, in the ears of those who are 
too busy or too giddy to hear it from any lips but yours. 
Are ye not all this world's ministering spirits, sent forth 
to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation ? 

It does not seem to me, young women, that your 
" sphere " is a narrow one, even as society is at 



Work for Women, 29 

present constituted. Putting together its two hemi- 
spheres of industry and charity, it appears to be about 
as large as most of you can worthily fill. And now 
let me finish this chapter with words that were written 
several years ago by one who was at that time, I be- 
lieve, an operative in a New England mill, — whose 
faculties were trained to some purpose, as the words 
themselves will witness, by the discipline of work, 
and who has now passed to her proper throne in the 
centre of a happy household : — 

"Work! while thy pulse with full vigor is beating, 
Toil and temptations with cheerfulness meeting; 
Work! for the day He has given thee is fleeting, — 

All the good angels will smile on thy toil; 
When thou wouldst stumble their strength shall uphold thee ; 
Lovingly will their white pinions enfold thee; 
God from his bright throne will lean to behold thee; 

Sunshine and shower he will send on the soil. 

"Work! 'tis the lesson all nature is preaching; 
Lift the dim minds through the darkness upreaching; 
Gladden sad hearts by thy life's blessed teaching; 

Scatter truth broadcast at morning and even. 
Bright is the crown that rewardeth thy striving; 
Better the great world should be for thy living; 
Give, and thy store shall increase with the giving; 

Sow, and the harvest shall ripen in heaven. 

' So when thy toiling and striving is over, 
When the green turf shall thy pulseless heart cover, 



30 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

Round thy low grave shall blest memories hover; 

Gratitude's tears shall be dropped on thy stone. 
And when thou stand'st at the dread bar of heaven, 
Trembling and shrinking, a sinner unshriven, 
Christ o'er thy record shall write, ' 'T is forgiven ' ; 

God will approvingly whisper, ' Well done ! ' w 



III. 

DRESS. 

I SHALL not trouble you with many quotations, 
but when I find one as good as this which fol- 
lows you will be glad to get it : — 

"The highest distinction of man as an animal 
among animals lies, not in his two-handedness or in 
his erect figure, but in his necessity and right of 
dress. The inferior animals have no option con- 
cerning their outward figure and appearance. Their 
dress or covering is a part of their organization, 
growing on them or out of them, as their bones are 
grown within. Be it feathers or fur or wool, — be it 
in this color or that, — brilliant as the rainbow or 
shaggy or grizzled or rusty or dull, they have no 
liberty to change it, even if they could desire the 
change, for one that is glossier and more to their 
taste. But man, as a creature gifted with a larger 
option, begins at the very outset to show his superior 
dignity in the necessary option of dress. It is given 
him for his really high prerogative to dress himself, 
and come into just what form of appearing will best 
satisfy his tastes, or, what is very nearly the same 



32 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

thing, will best represent the quality of his feeling 
and character." * 

This conversation is not, then, about a trivial sub- 
ject. If I take it for granted that the young folks, 
and especially the young women, are somewhat inter- 
ested in it, my supposition will be no disparagement 
of their good sense. 

Dress has an obvious and close relation to char- 
acter. The correspondence between the inner and 
outer man is often apparent. Qualities of mind and 
heart display themselves in the apparel. There are 
many exceptions to the rule, but it is the rule that 
well-behaved people, whether they be rich or poor, 
are well-dressed people. When the morals of a man 
begin to deteriorate you can often discover the fact in 
his dress. It may be as stylish and as costly as before, 
but it will begin to look unkempt and slovenly. And 
not only does character express itself in dress, but 
dress reacts upon character. There is some truth, 
after all, in the absurd parody of Pope's line, 

" Dress makes the man, the want of it the fellow." 

Care and painstaking in regard to one's external ap- 
pearance, if they be not excessive, tend to rectify and 
perfect his internal habits. If you are tidily and 
tastefully dressed, you feel better contented with 

* BushnelPs "Christ and his Salvation," p. 413. 



Dress. 33 

yourself than if you are dressed in awkward or slov- 
enly garments. Unbecoming apparel wounds your 
self-respect. This is not all vanity ; for you are often 
conscious of such feelings when appearance is not 
taken into account. There have been occasions 
when you were not in society, and did not expect to 
have your solitude interrupted, when the feeling that 
your dress was untidy or uncomely has so harassed 
you, that for your own peace of mind, before you 
could compose yourself to the task in hand, you 
were obliged to arise, and change or rearrange your 
garments. All this shows how powerfully our dress 
reacts upon ^our feelings, and through them upon our 
characters. 

There are four questions which most people are 
apt to ask concerning any article of dress : Is it 
comfortable? Is it beautiful? Is it fashionable? 
How much did it cost ? The first question is, of 
course, the most important one. The first quality 
of a garment is usefulness or comfort. No one de- 
nies the propriety of providing for ourselves such 
raiment as shall shield us from the cold and the 
damp. Our bodies as well as our souls are precious 
gifts of God, and we are bound to take care of them. 
Our clothing must neither cramp nor hamper nor 
expose our bodies ; it must afford them protection 
and comfort. 

2* e 



34 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

The second question may by some persons be 
deemed irrelevant, but to me it seems but a little 
less important than the first Raiment should not 
only be comfortable, it should be beautiful and be- 
coming. This is a matter about which some good 
people are not altogether clear. There was a time 
when it was deemed sinful by many persons to wear 
a garment if it had any pretensions to beauty of color 
or of form. But a few years ago, — within the mem- 
ories of many of us who are young, — a violent cru- 
sade was being preached against all beauty of attire. 
.Unquestionably there was then as there is now 
abundant cause for a firm protest against vanity and 
extravagance ; but it is difficult for people who start 
out as reformers to stop before they become fanatics. 
If those good Christian people had borne strong 
testimony against the profusion and excess of dress 
and ornament which everywhere prevailed, they would 
have done well ; but they went further, and laid down 
the most absurd laws in the matter. They permitted 
none but the homeliest styles and patterns; they 
placed all colors but the most sombre and dreary 
under the ban; and as for ornaments, the whole 
crusading force armed themselves with scourges of 
threats and small arguments, and determined to 
drive them out of the temple. Now I believe that 
these Christian people were perfectly conscientious in 



Dress. 35 

all this, but I do not believe that they gained anything 
for themselves or for their cause by means like these. 
When they set themselves against all beauty in attire, 
they must also, if they were strictly consistent, have 
arrayed themselves against all beauty in art or nature ; 
for if objects of animate and inanimate nature may 
wear beautiful forms and brilliant hues, surely man, 
the lord of nature, has a right to dress as well as 
they j and when you deny man's right to adorn him- 
self, so much more strongly as man is higher and 
better than nature must you condemn the splendid 
attire which the earth is constantly wearing. There- 
fore I think such a glorious sight as a sunset should 
have been painful to these persons, and a border of 
tulips or verbenas should have caused them many 
pangs of regret. They ought to have sighed to see 
the luxuriance of the apple blossoms in the spring- 
time, and the myriad colors of the forests in the 
autumn ought to have been to them a source of grief. 
They ought to have preached that the beauty of cre- 
ation is a consequence of the fall, that if Adam had 
not sinned we should have colorless skies and fields 
and forests, and that all natural objects would have 
assumed awkward and ungainly forms, instead of the 
forms of symmetry and grace which we poor depraved 
mortals cannot now help admiring ! No ! beauty is 
riot sin \ it is one of God's attributes. We ought 



36 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

by all means in our power to increase our capacity 
of loving and enjoying it. And since the wearing 
of garments that are beautiful is one means to that 
end, it is certainly not wrong for us to wear them if 
we can obtain them without sacrificing more valuable 
things. Of course there are many things of more 
importance than beautiful clothing ; and every one 
must be careful that he does not prefer the less to 
the greater. 

My reasons for believing that it is even a duty to 
dress beautifully are briefly these : First, in the Bible 
beautiful raiment is always spoken of as if it were a 
good thing in itself. In many parables and figures 
of speech, it is used to represent excellence of char- 
acter, — spiritual grace and beauty. And it is evident 
that, if beautiful raiment had seemed to the sacred 
writers to be a frivolous thing, or a thing of no con- 
sequence, they would not have chosen it as a type 
of the highest beauty, — the beauty of the spirit. 
Secondly, in the fact already mentioned, that dress 
reacts upon character, we find a reason for giving 
attention to the matter of beauty in attire. A reflex 
influence is continually exerted by the outer upon the 
inner man, and a tasteful and beautiful dress will 
help, insensibly, to cultivate a tasteful and beautiful 
spirit. 

Is it fashionable? is the third question commonly 



Dress. 37 

asked about dress. And with many persons it is the 
main question. Stylishness, though it is essentially 
of far less consequence than comfort or beauty, is 
by thousands regarded as the chiefest of the qualities 
of raiment. I fear that the majority care less to have 
their garments comfortable or beautiful than to have 
them fashionable. Every day I see numberless gar- 
ments worn for fashion's sake, in the wearing of 
which comfort is sacrificed and beauty is outraged, 
and even decency is shocked. It would not be pos- 
sible for the most grotesque fancy to contrive any 
garment so ridiculous that human beings would not 
wear it, if only assured that it was to be fashionable. 
Think of what has been, — of what is ! Can you 
conceive of anything more utterly absurd than those 
monstrous bags of something or other which women 
have been hanging to the backs of their heads of late? 
And yet how few women in the land have dared to 
resist this horrible demand of fashion ! 

The idea of a uniformity of style is in itself absurd. 
If the faces and figures of men and women were 
uniform, and changed uniformly from year to year, it 
would be possible to have one style of dress for all ; 
but since men and women are so unlike, nothing can 
be more ridiculous than that they should attempt to 
follow one prevailing fashion. By the law of fitness 
a large face should have a broad covering ; but the 



38 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

fashion-mongers ordain that bonnets shall be small 
this year, and all over the world big round faces stare 
out from under little top-knots which only serve to 
aggravate their bulginess. Upon some ladies the 
tight basque ' is always becoming, but a stout damsel 
or a fat' dowager stuffed into a tight basque cannot 
look otherwise than comical. And yet if this gar- 
ment happen to be the style, thousands of the fat 
women put it on and go waddling through the streets 
like perambulating grain-bags ! Pink is a color be- 
coming to very few American women; but if some 
shade of pink is the raging color, the great multitude 
of sallow visages will be swathed in it, making them 
look far more coppery and cadaverous than they 
really are. 

It is morally impossible that the styles of female 
attire should be tasteful and decorous so long as they 
come from so questionable a source. You all know, 
young women, where they originate. The harlots of 
Paris make the fashions, and you follow them ! 

But you tell me that it is not comfortable to be 
singular. You do not like to make spectacles of 
yourselves by disregarding all the laws of fashion. 
I do not blame you for this feeling. It is doubtless 
better that we should all conform in some general 
way to the prevalent style ; but there are some ex- 
tremes to which we ought not to go. Never wear 



Dress. 39 

anything that is indecent or positively ugly, because 
fashion requires it ; and do not employ any Frenchi- 
fied Yankee " Madame " to decide for you what is ugly 
and what is indecent. Judge for yourselves. If you 
find a garment which is not all the rage, but which is 
more beautiful and more becoming than those which 
happen to be fashionable, don't be afraid to wear it, 
I beg you. Do not confess yourselves the bond- 
slaves of this whimsical tyrant. Its empire is be- 
coming more fickle and more despotic year by year \ 
and the number of those who are its reasonless ser- 
vitors is increasing year by year. It is the sole au- 
thority that many men- and women obey. There are 
hundreds of thousands who would sooner break 
God's law than the law of fashion. Some of you 
who are reading this page would, I fear, speak false- 
hood or do injustice sooner than appear in the street 
in an antiquated coat or a bonnet of the last year's 
style. That seems a harsh statement, but it is true ; 
and can any truth be more melancholy? This tyr- 
anny of fashion over the bodies and souls of men 
and women has become so galling that it is the duty 
of all good people to protest with the sternest em- 
phasis against it, and to resist by example as well as 
by word its arrogant pretensions. It is not wonderful 
that men have sometimes been so alarmed by its en- 
croachments that they have made a religion of plain- 



40 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

ness. But somewhere between these two extremes, — 
the ugly uniformity of the Shaker dress and the frip- 
peries of foppery, — there must be a golden mean. 
Try to find it. 

The fourth question that we are wont to ask con- 
cerning every garment is, How much did it cost? 
And, strangely enough, costliness is often considered 
one of the cardinal qualities of raiment. Of two 
articles of clothing the more expensive is deemed 
the more desirable, even though it may not be more 
serviceable or beautiful. Millions of dollars are 
squandered every year for clothing which is intrinsi- 
cally neither beautiful nor valuable. This wanton 
extravagance in dress is not only senseless, it is sin- 
ful. Vanity and ambition are the two vices of which 
it is the offspring ; and the silliness of this vanity and 
the wickedness of this ambition are so obvious, that 
no ink need be wasted in denouncing them. 

I have spoken now of the proprieties of dress. 
The subject has been taken out of its relations, and 
has been considered as a separate topic. Now let me 
ask, What is the relative importance of this subject ? 
Should it be the chief subject of consideration and 
discussion, or should it occupy a subordinate place 
in your thought? That you have a perfect right to 
think about it we have agreed ; but how much ought 
you to think about it ? Dress ought to be an orna- 



Dress. 41 

ment; should it be your chief ornament? Not ac- 
cording to a certain ancient authority. "Let not 
your adorning," says Peter the apostle, " be that out- 
ward adorning of plaiting the hair and of wearing 
of gold or of putting on of apparel." That is to say, 
you are not to rely upon these for adornment ; there 
are other decorations more beautiful than these. I 
have no doubt that, in the minds of some of you, this 
matter of dress has usurped a place which does not 
belong to it To some of you it has become the one 
great object of thought and desire. If you should 
frame a catechism, you would be inclined to say that 
the chief end of man is. to wear fine clothes and en- 
joy them forever. And you do not all belong to the 
wealthier classes either. Some of you are poor. 
You work hard every day in the shops and mills, 
you subsist on scanty fare, you deny yourselves rest 
and pastime that you sadly need ; and the great in- 
centive to all this toil and self-denial is your love 
of dress. All day as you work you are thinking of 
some new garment you intend to buy, or imagining 
what magnificent wardrobes you would have if riches 
should come to you ; in the pauses of your work your 
talk with your workmates is all about the latest styles ; 
and when you go home at night, worn out with work, 
you sit down with your needles to fashion some elab- 
orate nothing with which to deck these bodies you 



42 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 






are doing your best to destroy. Your pale faces bear 
witness to me, whenever I see you, that the finery upon 
your backs has been paid for in the life-blood drained 
from your veins. From the bottom of my heart, I 
pity you ! I wish you could see that there is some- 
thing higher to live for than dress ; but I am afraid 
you never will. I wish you could understand that it 
would be better for you to be content with less ex- 
pensive and less stylish garments, and to devote part 
of the time you spend in earning them to exercise 
and sport in the fresh air and the sunshine. 

This is not the worst fruit of this passion for fine 
clothes. Young people sometimes sacrifice to it 
something even more precious than bodily health 
and mental culture. Many a young man, goaded on 
by this craving, and unable to satisfy it from his own 
resources, has dipped into the till of his employer, 
deeper and deeper, till at last his name has been 
written on the records of crime, and his fair fame 
has been lost forever. Many a young woman, find- 
ing the swift needle or the swifter shuttle too slow to 
keep up with the demands of her appetite for dress, 
has sold her virtue to purchase garments of shame ! 

Only those of you who are poor are tempted to 
sacrifice health and integrity to the passion for fine 
clothes; but there are other grave consequences to 
which all are liable who make it the ruling passion. 



Dress. 43 

One of these is the weakening of the intellect. You 
know our minds take shape and dimensions from the 
objects upon which we most employ them. If we 
deal chiefly with that which is of trivial or secondary 
importance, our intellectual powers are dwarfed and 
stunted in their growth. Thus it is with some young 
people. They have given up their thoughts so long 
to ribbons and laces and dickies and cravats, that 
their minds have become sadly enfeebled and belit- 
tled. All intellectual pursuits which demand patient 
and profound thought are beyond their reach ; noth- 
ing is more wearisome to them than the consideration 
of serious questions in science or in morals. You 
and I meet with people every day whose minds have 
been starved into semi-imbecility by incessantly feed- 
ing them upon the husks of fashion. 

This law of the mind is equally the law of the 
heart. When the heart is set upon trifling or un- 
worthy objects, it grows strait and shallow. It is 
impossible that one who is completely wedded to the 
vanities of dress should be faithful to the vows of 
affection. No man nor woman can serve two mas- 
ters; and when Fashion is the chief object of worship, 
the household deities are every day blasphemed and 
set at naught. I have found, too, in my experience 
as a pastor, that those persons with whom dress is 
the ruling passion are not easily impressed with the 



44 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

truths of religion. It is easy enough to scare them 
by talking about death and hell ; but when anything 
is said of the dignity of the Christian life, and the 
rewards of self-sacrifice, they listen as though they 
heard not. Their minds are so full of fripperies and 
furbelows, that these weightier matters can find no 
room within them. 

Young men and women, I charge you that you 
follow not this dangerous road. Do not suffer these 
things of secondary worth to become the main objects 
of your living. You cannot afford to pauperize your 
minds and petrify your hearts in this way. The 
world has need of you, and you have no right to 
squander the life God has given you upon such igno- 
ble pursuits. Do you never think, when you deck 
yourselves in costly raiment, of the thousands about 
you in rags and wretchedness ? Do no visions ever 
appear to you of little pinched forms that crouch 
hungry and cold in damp cellars and frosty garrets, — 
of little bare feet that in winter-time go pattering 
over the icy pavements, leaving blood-marks be- 
hind, — of multitudes of the destitute and the igno- 
rant and the forsaken, who are calling you with 
piteous entreaties to come and help them? While 
the world is so full of want and sorrow and heathen- 
ism, will you turn life into a gay masquerade, and go 
flaunting your follies forever in the faces of those who 



Dress. 45 

need the inspiration of your love and the uplifting 
of your hopefulness, and the relief your charities 
could bring them ? Let your minds go forward now 
and often to that moment when you shall stand within 
the border-lands, looking back upon the life that is 
closing, and resolve to live so that that last moment 
shall not be clouded with remorseful thoughts. 

God grant that you may be clothed with the robes 
of a spotless integrity and an unfailing charity ; and 
when the great feast shall be spread in heaven, and 
the King shall come in to see his guests, may he 
find every one of you there, with the wedding gar- 
ment on ! 



IV. 

MANNERS. 

IN one view, manners may be regarded as of sec- 
ondary importance. It is sometimes said that if 
the central principles of the life are right, there will 
be little need of preaching about mere ceremonies of 
deportment ; and there is a measure of truth in this 
assertion. But it is equally true, that if the central 
principles of the life are right, there is little need of 
preaching about honesty or patience. How shall we 
know that the life is built on the right principles, but 
by observing the deeds in which it issues ? and of 
these the most trifling are sometimes the best expo- 
nents of character. If you want to know which way 
the wind is blowing, you do not look at solid blocks of 
masonry, nor do you watch the trunks of stout trees ; 
you observe the slender, branches at the top, or the 
dry leaves which the wind has torn from their stems. 
" Straws show which way the wind blows." The pri- 
mary signification of the old proverb is, that even the 
slightest phenomena will sometimes guide us to their 
fundamental law ; but it is true that the slightest phe- 
nomena are sometimes most valuable in leading us 



Manners, 47 

to correct conclusions. Straws are infinitely better 
indices of the direction of the wind than granite 
boulders. So are the rules of good manners, some- 
times, I think, better tests of the moral condition, 
than the moral precepts themselves. Many a man 
whose character you could hardly criticise, if you 
compared it with the commands of the decalogue, 
would soon reveal his selfishness if you should try 
him by the laws of good manners. He would be 
scrupulous in observing all the plain requirements 
of morality, but the instant he passed beyond the 
boundaries of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not," 
he would be off his guard, and then you would soon 
see his true character manifested. 

" Every tree is known by its fruit " ; but some trees 
are well known also by their blossoms. Such a one 
is the tree of human life, of which morals are the 
fruit and manners are the flowers. 

The sun is the source of light and heat. Heat is 
considered the more important agency in the work 
of vegetation. It breaks the fetters of the frost in 
the spring-time, and warms into life the germs of 
plants, and sets the vital currents flowing through the 
woody veins of trees. But light has also an impor- 
tant function. All the beauties of vegetation are its 
peculiar work. It arrays the flowers in their beauty, 
and decks the leaves in their multitudinous tints of 



48 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

green and gold. Moreover, it has an important part 
to fulfil in stimulating the growth of plants. Look 
at the sickly, etiolated sprouts that grow in your cel- 
lars, with plenty of warmth and air and nourish- 
ment, — all the requisites except light, — and you 
will see how much light has to do in knitting fibres 
and tissues, and giving health and beauty to vege- 
tation. 

All that light is to vegetation manners are to 
social life. They give it much of its beauty and 
gracefulness. Society would be a sombre barbarism 
without them. Moreover, there is no question that 
they help the growth of genuine morality. 

That is a grave social heresy which sneers at po- 
liteness as deceitfulness, and advocates the blunt 
expression of all our feelings, no matter how un- 
charitable they may be. I have heard persons boast 
of actions of this sort, after some such manner as 
this : " I did not like him, — I cannot tell why it 
was, — but from the first moment that person filled 
me with disgust ; so I let him know just how I felt. 
I was not going to treat him as if I had great love 
for him, when I had no such feeling. There is very 
little deceit about me. I always act out just what I 
feel." You have heard such vain boasting as this. 
It sounds sincere and plain-hearted, but in truth it is 
an ebullition of ill-nature. First impressions are 






Manners, 49 

likely to be erroneous. The shrewdest observers of 
human nature are often at fault in their first estimates 
of character. And therefore we may do great injus- 
tice to excellent people by acting out these groundless 
caprices. Honesty and plain-heartedness are alto- 
gether inappropriate names to give to actions of this 
nature. You might as well call a man plain-hearted 
who flies into a passion and swears at you, or who 
deals you a blow in your face with his fist. If it is 
praiseworthy to act out all. our feelings, then all those 
who allow their passions loose rein, and are guilty of 
all manner of crimes and excesses, are the models we 
ought to imitate. Such feelings must be restrained, 
and good manners assist us in restraining them. 
The laws of common politeness interpose a check to 
these rude outbursts of our selfish nature. 

When noxious weeds grow upon stony soil, where 
it is difficult to plough them up by the roots, farm- 
ers cut them off with scythes before their seed-time. 
After a few mowings they cease to sprout. Man- 
ners do not strike at the roots of our vices, — indeed 
it is pretty hard to get them out by the roots, — but 
they are excellent helps in keeping the tops trimmed. 

You perceive, young friends, that I have estimated 
manners highly as a social power. Instead of deem- 
ing them an insignificant ornamental accompaniment 
of life, I have ranked them with the moral forces. 
3 d 



50 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

You will do well to observe all their reasonable re- 
quirements. There are few distinguishments of which 
one may justly feel more proud than of good breed- 
ing. Let me venture to make a few practical sugges- 
tions. They are not copied from Chesterfield, nor 
plagiarized from any young lady's behavior-book. 
They are only the dictates of Christian common 
sense. 

The first rule of good manners is this, "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This embraces 
and epitomizes all the rest. I shall not have a word 
to say upon this subject which cannot be referred to 
this text as its fundamental principle. True polite- 
ness is nothing more nor less than the Christian rule 
of life applied to all the minutiae of our social inter- 
course. John Witherspoon's definition is worth re- 
peating and remembering. "Politeness," said he, 
"is real kindness, kindly expressed." Nothing but 
this deserves the name. Examine the slightest act 
of true politeness, and you will find this element of 
kindness in it. You offer another the seat you oc- 
cupy; the politeness of the act consists only in its 
kindness. You bow or uncover your head upon 
meeting an acquaintance in the street; the act is 
polite, only because it is a generous acknowledgment 
of the worth of the man or woman you salute. So 
you will find in every act of the true gentleman traces 



Manners. 5 1 

of good-will and self-sacrifice. " Be kindly affec- 
tioned one toward another, in honor preferring one 
another." So wrote the Apostle Paul, one of the 
truest gentlemen that ever lived. No one in whose 
heart there is not a joyful readiness to make little 
sacrifices continually for the happiness of his associ- 
ates will ever be the possessor of a true gentility. 

In the second place, remember that good manners 
are not for display, but for benevolent use. They are 
not to be a means of showing ourselves off; they are 
to be a means of showing kindness to others. Is 
there not in some minds a misapprehension in regard 
to this ? Do you never see people who seem by all 
their actions in society to say: "Just look at me! 
See what a magnificent bow I can make ! Notice 
how blandly I smile ! Listen to the melody of my 
laugh ! Observe what warmth and cordiality I can 
throw into the tones of my voice ! Mark the grace- 
fulness of my step and the dignity of my bearing ! " 
This is not good manners ; it is snobbishness of the 
most offensive sort. Politeness is one thing, and a 
very good thing • but the putting on of airs is another, 
and a very disgusting thing. We are never to exhibit 
ourselves; we are always to gratify and entertain 
others. When one begins to display himself, other 
people are sure to feel that his intention is to put 
them in the shade. That is the intention. Whoever 



52 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

seeks to make himself appear conspicuous has in his 
heart a desire that those about him may appear insig- 
nificant. It is not hard to see that this ostentation 
of politeness is exactly at variance with the golden 
rule. He who loves his neighbor as himself has 
none of this contemptible ambition to outshine his 
neighbor. 

In the third place, it is well to understand that 
there is and can be no fixed standard of good man- 
ners. No dancing-master or professor of etiquette 
can teach you a system of rules that will at all times 
be fit and practicable. The reason is plain. Good 
manners are not for yourselves, but for other people ; 
and therefore they must, in great measure, be deter- 
mined by the people with whom you are associated 
for the time being. You are to seek their happiness, 
and of course you will do nothing which will offend 
or annoy them. The tastes, the prejudices, and the 
customs of people vary greatly in different societies ; 
and what would please one company would offend 
another. In a Jewish synagogue or a Friends' meet- 
ing, it would be grossly impolite to uncover your 
head. In a Christian assembly it would be just as 
impolite for a gentleman to keep his head covered. 
Circles of society that differ less than these have cus- 
toms that are very dissimilar, and in these matters the 
man of good breeding will always carefully conform 



Manners. 53 

to the customs of the people with whom he is associ- 
ating. He will not compromise any moral principle 
for the sake of pleasing others ; but in non-essentials 
he will conform his conduct to their tastes and cus- 
toms. When you are in Rome, you are not to do as 
the Romans do, if they do wrong ; but you are to do 
as they do in mere matters of form and conventional 
usage. 

And yet there are not a few who early in life be- 
come possessors of a set of movements and gestures 
and phrases, in which they are pronounced mi fait by 
masters of deportment, and who spend the remainder 
of their days in showing them off. Wherever they 
are, whether in a Fifth- Avenue saloon, or in a back- 
woodsman's cabin, they square their conduct by the 
same rigid rules. 

Here are two young ladies, who have always 
moved in the same society in the city, and who are 
equally well versed in all the requirements of eti- 
quette. They are both regarded by their friends as 
polite young ladies. They both pay visits to country 
cousins. One of the young ladies carries her city 
style with her into the country. Her debut in the 
farm-house produces a profound sensation. Her rural 
relations stand aghast, as with all sails set she bears 
down upon them; and they receive her well-meant 
civility with an admiring shudder. Through her 



54 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

whole visit she rides the lofty steed of metropolitan 
ceremony. Every swain to whom she is introduced 
is astonished and confounded, makes his Sunday 
bow as well as he can, and hastens from her pres- 
ence, to relieve himself of his embarrassment. The 
consequence is, that the honest folk with whom she 
is tarrying are in a state of perpetual perplexity and 
uneasiness. They cannot imitate her, and they natu- 
rally feel that they are placed by her conduct in the 
position of inferiors. They form unpleasant opinions 
of city folks, and she in turn is disgusted with the 
stupidity of country folks. They breathe more freely 
when she takes her departure, and she carries with 
her no grateful memories of her visit. 

The other young lady drops the ceremonies to 
which she is accustomed as soon as she leaves her 
home, and is ready to adapt herself to circumstances 
and people. When she arrives at her destination, she 
greets her friends in an unaffected and hearty manner, 
and immediately begins to observe their characters 
and habits, that she may understand them and be 
understood by them. She is careful not to put on 
any airs which the country people cannot wear as 
gracefully as she, and she studies to please them and 
make her society agreeable to them. In short, it is 
evident from all her conduct that she has come into 
the county not to astonish and outshine the country 



Manners. 55 

folks, but to put herself on a friendly footing with 
them, and make them happy. There is sunshine in 
the farm-house as long as she tarries ; she goes away 
with many regrets, and that visit is by her as well 
as her country friends held in delightful remem- 
brance. 

Now these two young ladies, when judged by the 
received standards of etiquette, would be deemed 
equally genteel, but their test experience proved that 
the one was well bred and the other was not. The 
one remembered and the other forgot the two princi- 
ples which we have been considering : that good 
manners are not for show, .but for service; and that 
in them we must conform ourselves, so far as we are 
able, without immodesty or indecency, to the tastes 
and the customs of those with whom we are asso- 
ciated. 

In the fourth place, notice that self-consciousness 
is one of the worst blemishes of deportment. The 
person who is always impressed, in society, with the 
idea that everybody is looking at him, is sure to be 
awkward and ill-mannered. There can be neither 
grace nor freedom in movements that originate in this 
impression. You shall see many persons who by their 
gait and manner when they enter a public assembly 
reveal their suspicion that they are the centres of 
observation. Some walk in timidly, as if they were 



56 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ashamed to be looked at ; others, with a deprecatory 
air, as if they considered themselves aggrieved by 
being looked at; others, quite defiantly, as if they 
did not care if they were looked at ; and others still, 
with a bearing of magnificent complacency, as if to 
be looked at were the highest pleasure of their souls. 
All this is very amusing to a spectator. And the 
same phenomenon is seen everywhere in society. 
It arises, of course, from an aggravated egoism. 
Such people need to learn that they are of far less 
consequence than they suppose. Trust, me, good 
friends, — for I know that some of those who are read- 
ing this paragraph are afflicted with this weakness, — 
you are not looked at half so much as you imagine. 
I dare say you may walk into church and not be 
observed by half a dozen members of the congrega- 
tion. You may step across a parlor almost any time 
without attracting the notice of any considerable 
number of its occupants. And if you could only 
dismiss from your minds the absurd notion that you 
are the cynosure of all eyes, you would not only find 
more enjoyment in society, but you would appear to 
better advantage. Do not suffer yourselves to think 
of the appearance you are making; if you do, you 
will always be awkward and constrained. Burns 
wished we might always be able to see ourselves as 
others see us. I don't know about that. Sometimes 



Manners. 57 

it would be of great advantage to us if we could for- 
get that others see us. 

In the fifth place, remember that those who are 
beneath you have as good a right to your courtesy 
as those who are above you. Kindness to the lowly 
is one of the distinctive marks of good breeding. 
If you have the right idea of gentility, you will not 
disregard those who cannot thrust themselves into 
your society. You will find a pleasure in showing 
respect to those who are poor or uncultured or dif- 
fident. I think, young folks, that a loving courtesy 
is one of the most valuable gifts we can bestow 
upon the poor. Our charities might prove a curse 
to them ; but polite attentions shown them can be 
nothing but a blessing. You cannot do a poor man 
a greater service than by respecting him, and show- 
ing him that you respect him. A cordial word, a 
shake of the hand, a touch of the hat, — these cost 
nothing, but to those who receive them they are 
worth a vast amount. 

The final suggestion is that you do not save your 
good manners for the street or for society, but that 
you let them beautify and bless your homes. A 
thoughtful courtesy will never be wasted upon those 
who dwell beneath the same roof. Nowhere else 
can such a revenue of joy and blessing be gathered 
from true politeness. I do not mean that you should 
3* 



* 58 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

fall into stately, ceremonious ways at home (nor 
abroad either, for that matter) ; I do not believe in 
stiffness or formality in social intercourse anywhere ; 
but if we would be careful to show little kindnesses 
at home when there is occasion for them, 1 — and 
such occasions are numberless, — if we would learn 
to deny ourselves in little things for the sake of 
others, in honor preferring one another, we should 
find the happiness of home greatly increased. Be- 
sides, if such a kindly courtesy is the law of our 
home life, it will not be difficult for us to obey it 
when we are away from home. It will become as 
natural as breathing. We do not always think of 
the importance of this thing. We are too apt to 
reserve our good manners for strangers, and thus 
our intercourse with those who are dearest to us is 
robbed of one of the charms that might hallow it. 
I heard one day in a railway car this conversa- 
tion : — 

"Who is that gentleman in the third seat?" 

"That is Mr. Jones." 

" Is the lady with him his wife ? " 

"I think not." 

"Have you ever seen Mrs. Jones?" 

"No," 

"Why then do you think this is not she?" 

"Because he is rather more polite to her than 
men are apt to be to their wives." 



Manners, 59 

This sarcasm would not have been so keen but 
for the truth with which it was edged. Let us heed 
it. If courtesy brings grace and beauty with it, let 
us find room for it at home. 



V. 

CONVERSATION. 

THE great Mr. Carlyle, who used to pass for a 
philosopher, insists that we talk too much. 
Doubtless that is true of most people, and perhaps 
it is not altogether untrue in these latter days of 
Mr. Carlyle himself. Words are something more 
than wind, however, and conversation as a social 
force must not be lightly esteemed. You remember 
that, in one of Mr. Cooper's Revolutionary stories, 
he introduces two characters who fall into an ear- 
nest debate upon the right of the American Colonies 
to rebel. The parties are an officer in the king's 
army, who stoutly denies that right, and an American 
clergyman, who as stoutly affirms it. The discussion 
is kept up until a late hour, and the combatants, 
unwilling to give up the battle, agree to sleep upon 
their arms. The next morning, after the smoke of 
the last night's controversy has cleared away, each 
finds that he has been converted to the faith of the 
other ; the British officer avows his intention of 
throwing up his commission and joining the rebels, 
and the American clergyman is convinced that it is 



Conversation. 61 

his duty to apply for a chaplaincy in his Majesty's 
service ; and in these convictions they both continue 
through the remainder of their lives. This is hardly 
an exaggeration of the effect which is daily produced 
in the modification of men's opinions through the 
agency of conversation. In politics, in religion, in 
the arts of life, opinions are oftener changed by 
familiar talk than by formal speeches. He who can 
talk wisely and well is qualified to exert great in- 
fluence. 

But conversation is not merely a useful art, it is 
a fine art. No other accomplishment is to be com- 
pared with it. No entertainment is so rich and 
satisfying as that which is furnished in a circle of 
good talkers. You know persons to whom it is a 
delight to listen, their conversation is so full of 
wisdom and grace. They are sought in society ; 
at the dinner-table where they sit there is ambrosial 
food ; and the fireside circles into which they are 
drawn never find it hard to make the time pass 
pleasantly. If, now, conversation is one of the most 
potent and pervasive of the social forces, and one of 
the finest of the arts, there is reason why we should 
study it. We may be admonished by Mr. Carlyle to 
talk less ; but let us qualify ourselves to talk well 
when we do talk. 

There are just two indispensable qualifications of 



62 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

a good conversationist. They are very comprehen- 
sive qualifications, however. The first is a goo 
mind. 

This implies a vast amount. It implies, of course, 
some natural ability; though the meanest capacities, 
with proper culture, may reflect honor upon their 
possessor. The toughest and hardest wood takes 
the finest polish, and it sometimes seems to be so 
with mind. Graces and accomplishments which have 
been wrought out by patience and painstaking are 
beautiful and precious ; while those which cost little 
labor are often lightly esteemed. 

Next to natural ability we find in a good mind 
intelligence. A good mind is a well-stored mind. 
Only out of the abundance of the mind the mouth 
speaketh eloquently. One of the chief reasons why 
good talkers are so few is found in the fact that 
there are few ■ who have anything to talk about. 
This is the reason social gatherings are often so 
dreary and unsociable. People have nothing to say. 
This is the reason why talk often degenerates into 
twaddle or is perverted to the bad purposes of gossip. 
It is the lack of information, not the lack of natural 
ability, which occasions the barrenness of conversa- 
tion in many circles. It is painful in the extreme to 
listen to the attempts of some excellent people to 
"make talk/' as they say. The task of making 



■ 



Conversation. 63 

bricks without straw is recreation compared with the 
drudgery of trying to talk when you have nothing to 
say. But let two persons of large reading and obser- 
vation meet, and although they are entire strangers, 
they will soon find something to talk about. There 
are a thousand subjects, outside of themselves, and 
apart from their belongings, of which they have 
knowledge ; the hours pass quickly as they converse, 
and when they meet again they will not be strangers. 
I do not wish to be understood as asserting that none 
but the school-learnt can talk interestingly, for I know 
many persons whose opportunities of acquiring edu- 
cation have been very limited, who are never at a loss 
for subjects of profitable conversation. They are 
diligent readers, busy thinkers, constant students of 
nature and of men ; I never talk with them without 
finding all my thinking faculties aroused and stimu- 
lated ; I always learn something from them, and am 
always conscious that they are trying hard to learn 
something from me. 

A good mind is also a well-disciplined mind, — a 
mind accustomed to reflect, to judge, and to choose 
for itself. This insures an independence and a vigor 
of expression, without which conversation is always 
tame and profitless. It is not enough that your 
memory is stored with facts ; you must know what to 
do with your facts ; you must know what your facts 



64 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

mean. What you want, in order to talk well, is a 
well-furnished mind. Now a room is not well fur- 
nished when the furniture, be it ever so abundant and 
costly, is pitched into a heap in the middle of it; 
neither is a mind well furnished when the knowledge 
which it holds is loosely thrown into it, without order 
or system. 

Of course a well-disciplined mind will serve you in 
other ways besides enabling you to talk well. It is 
what you need in all the labors and studies of life. 
It is a possession that can never lie fallow. In some 
subsequent chapter I propose to speak of the meth- 
ods of mental discipline. It is only important to this 
discussion that you should consider it indispensable 
to him who would excel in conversation. Get wis- 
dom, then, and with all your gettings get understand- 
ing. If you would be good talkers you must not 
only know something, you must also know what that 
something means, and know how you know it. 

The second general qualification of a good talker 
is a good heart. This is even more comprehensive 
than the other. It implies, first, good-humor. This 
is a prime condition of good conversation. Indeed, 
when good-humor takes leave, conversation immedi- 
ately ceases to be conversation and becomes dispute 
in a more or less aggravated form. Write this little 
precept in capital letters in your memory : When 



Conversation, 65 

YOU BEGIN TO LOSE YOUR TEMPER, STOP TALKING. 

But something more is demanded than good temper, 
— the absence of variance. There must be a vein 
of cheerfulness always. Good-humor is to conversa- 
tion what motion is to a brook, — it gives sparkle 
and vivacity; without it we soon have stagnation. 
I have noticed in society that moody and sour- 
minded persons are always avoided, no matter how 
splendid may be their abilities, while those who are 
always bubbling over with mirth never fail of de- 
lighted listeners. 

Charitableness is another quality of the good heart. 
The good conversationist is one who listens with re- 
spect and tolerance to all that others have to say, 
and who never judges them harshly because they 
happen to differ from him. And not only does he 
treat the opinions of others with charity, — he judges 
their lives in the same way. He thinks no evil of 
his neighbor, and therefore, of course, he speaks no 
evil concerning him. That is to say, he avoids all 
gossip and everything that resembles gossip. He 
never descends to that dirty level, and if he can help 
it, he never associates with people who do. 

A virtue closely akin to charitableness is candor. 
All conversation is worse than vain, if those who con- 
verse are not willing to know the truth, even though 
the truth may conflict with opinions which they hold. 



66 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

When two persons talk simply to vanquish each o* 1 
in argument, — not caring so much to know the 
of the matter about which they are talking as t. 
the victory in debate, or to defend opinions whic 
they have expressed, — their conversation will resr 1 
in no good whatever. When you find yours* 
company with persons whose talk all 
stimulated by the feeling, " I Ve said it, . _ I 'il 
to it, right or wrong," you had better draw the iu 
view to a close as soon as possible. In your cot 
sation, let every one see that you have no opinic 
dear that you will not surrender them at the den 
of truth. 

Sympathy is another of the moral requisites 
good conversation. This is one of the good ta r 
choicest gifts. He is able to put himself imme< 
on an equal footing with those to whom he is ta 
he enters into their thought and feeling as comp ; 
as he can; he studies their mental habits and ac 
ments, if he does not know them by intuition, ta 
may know what subjects would most interest 
and he is careful to introduce no themes that w 
be tedious or disagreeable to them. I know o A 
grace which is more to be coveted in society than 
sympathetic friendliness by which one can in 
ately throw himself into the feeling of those to 
he speaks, establishing between himself and . 
relations of equality and fraternity. 



Conversation. 6? 

jstness is another of the qualities of the good 

The opposite of this is that trifling spirit so 

aieht at the present day. I suppose that Paul 

i Apostle meant this when he wrote of "foolish 

king and jesting, which are not convenient." 

c us, I dare say, have found them quite in- 

•en, in the exercise of what wits we 

,sed, v.e have been utterly unable to determine 

iher individuals meant exactly what they said or 

-\y the opposite. I do not stickle for mathemat- 

jcuracy of expression, at all times \ I only object 

\'.e constant habit of trifling into which some young 

ions fall. An occasional ripple may not be ob- 

'onable, but when there are nothing but rapids, 

now that the stream is shallow. We demand 

'Hepth and tranquillity in conversation. Our 

Entertainment and our clearest profit are always 

f in conversing with those whom we know to be 

ighly in earnest, whose words we can receive 

ut being constantly on our guard against irony 

aoulle-entendre. 

Sincerity is a distinguishing quality of the good 

ker. The opposite of this is a worse fault than 

last. It is the sin of deceit or dishonesty, un- 

ious or deliberate. The other fault arises from 

lue playfulness ; this arises from an undue love 

applause. You meet not a few in society who 



68 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

habitually deceive you by assenting to all you say, 
whether they believe it or not ; by taking pains to talk 
in unison with you, though they go directly athwart 
their own convictions. You are not long in finding 
out such people, and when you have once discovered 
what manner of spirit they are of, you derive no more 
satisfaction from conversation with them. Be not like 
unto them. Be perfectly sincere in all your talk. 
Profess nothing which you do not feel. Assent to 
nothing which you do not believe. If dissent would 
violate hospitality or cause you unavailing trouble, 
you ' may sometimes be silent ; but never think to 
gain the regard of others by hiding or falsifying your 
own convictions. 

Modesty is another of the traits which adorn the 
good talker. Egotism is insufferable in conversation. 
And yet how many are the ways in which it comes out 
in common talk. Men who in public places conduct 
themselves with dignity and modesty are sometimes 
unbearably egotistic in private conversation. There 
are many distinguished personages whom you have 
never met, whose personal acquaintance you had bet- 
ter not form, if you wish to preserve your exalted 
opinion of them. If you should hear them talk, 
you would soon be disenchanted. Their self-conceit 
would be so disgusting to you, that you would never 
care to see or hear them again. But though self-con- 



Conversation. 69 

ceit is a common vice of great men, it does not ap- 
pear necessary that a man should be great in order 
that he may think highly of himself. Some very 
small men whom I have known have been great 
egotists. Egotism crops out everywhere in conver- 
sation. There is the individual whose talk is all 
about himself, — his wonderful experiences, — his 
matchless gifts and possessions, — his peculiar tastes 
and notions, — his distinguished friends. Change 
the topic of conversation as often as you will, he will 
always return, after a brief digression, to the original 
mutton. You can neither coax him off nor choke 
him off. So long as he talks, he will talk about him- 
self, and when he ceases to talk about himself, his 
tongue will cleave to the roof of his mouth. You 
know this individual. Do you like to talk with him ? 
He has a neighbor who resembles him, in the manner 
of his conversation. This one is always ready to 
match every fact you state, no matter how interesting 
or remarkable, with another fact considerably more 
interesting and remarkable, connected with his life 
and history. Is he an agreeable companion ? There 
is another, who entertains you with a minute account 
of his ailments. Of all the egotists the valetudina- 
rian is the worst. Persons who " enjoy poor health," 
and find all their comfort in talking about it, are to be 
treated kindlyj of course, poor creatures ! but they 



70 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

are not exactly the kind of people one likes to spend 
a social evening with. Then there is another trouble- 
some kind of egotist, — the individual who talks all 
the time, — turning the conversation into a harangue, 
which he delivers to a circle of uneasy listeners. 
You remember the story of Madame de Stael, who, 
upon being introduced to a deaf and dumb man, 
talked to him for an hour or more with her accus- 
tomed fluency, not even noticing that he did not 
reply ; and afterward said to the friend who intro- 
duced him, "Who was that gentleman? I thought 
him a remarkably agreeable person." Such mono- 
logues may be pardoned to Madame de Stael, in con- 
sideration of her wonderful gifts of extemporaneous 
speech ; but it will hardly be safe for any of us to 
esteem ourselves so much wiser than our associates 
that we can claim the right of talking all the while, 
leaving them only the responsibility of listening. 

Please remember this, young people, that conver- 
sation implies, on the part of all who engage in it, 
both talking and listening. In all good conversation 
each individual has as much listening as talking to 
do ; and the good conversationist is one who can not 
only talk well, but also listen well. I know some 
eloquent listeners, who show by all their conduct that 
they are paying the strictest and most respectful at- 
tention to every word that is spoken to them ; and I 



Conversation. Ji 

know others who never hear anything that is said to 
them, — who deliver their own remarks, and then, 
if they give way for reply, the vacant expression of 
their eyes, and their absent, abstracted manner, give 
evidence that instead of listening to you they are 
thinking what they shall say next. Now all this 
arises from excessive self-conceit. It grows out of 
the supposition on their part that it is all important 
that you should hear what they have to say, but that 
what you have to say is not of the slightest conse- 
quence to them nor to anybody else. 

Charron has truly said : " In company it is a great 
fault to be more forward in setting" one's self off than 
to learn the worth and be truly acquainted with the 
abilities of other men. Especially must those who 
are really gifted in conversation remember this truth ; 
for he who eclipses others owes them great civilities, 
and, whatever a mistaken vanity may tell us, it is bet- 
ter to please in conversation than to shine in it." 

To be a good talker, we have seen, one must have 
a good mind and a good heart. The good heart, 
while it is by far the more important of the two quali- 
fications, is the one more likely to be disregarded. 
The conversational gifts which men most covet are 
the gifts of fluency and brilliancy and wit. Such 
qualities as sincerity and charity and candor and 
earnestness and modesty they forget to cultivate. 



*] 2 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

And yet, without these fluency is a curse and bril 
liancy an ignis fatuus, and the arrows of wit are poi 
soned arrows. 

I remember now the words of One whose conver- 
sations (for he never made speeches) have been the 
most precious legacy of the world for many centuries : 
" How can ye, being evil, speak good things ; for out 
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of 
the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." Here 
we come to the root of the matter. If you would 
talk well, you must live well. Learn of this great 
Master how to live, and your utterances, like his, in 
some smaller measure, shall have authority with men ; 
and they shall wonder at the gracious words they hear 
you speak. So shall society be pervaded and quick- 
ened by your influence, and you shall find at last, 
treasured upon the luminous pages of the book of 
remembrance, many words fitly spoken, — apples of 
gold in pictures of silver. 



VI. 

HABITS. 

* T ET all thy ways be established," said a certain 
J — ' wise man. It seems a tame and prosaic in- 
junction ; but there is poetry in it, if we only know 
what it means. 

Some words are pictures. The moment you hear 
them spoken, your imagination presents to you the 
figures or scenes which they describe. They convey 
truth to the logical faculties, not directly, but through 
the media of the poetical faculties. For instance, if 
I speak of Christian duty, you can only grasp at a 
dry abstraction ; but if I speak of the Christian race, 
you immediately conceive of an arena, with crowds 
of spectators on either side, and the racers with 
bodies bent forward and eyes intent, all speeding 
toward the goal. There are many words in our lan- 
guage which were once employed in a figurative way, 
but which are now perfectly literal. Tribulation is 
one of these. When you hear the word now, you 
never have any conception of its original meaning. 
You only think of trouble or sorrow in its most gen- 
eral signification. But a few hundred years ago if 
4 



74 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 






one used that word, it conveyed a definite image to 
the minds of those who heard him. For the tribulum 
was a flail, and a tribulation was nothing more nor 
less than a thrashing. The tendency of language is 
toward lateralization. In the early days of language, 
nearly every word is a picture ; but every-day use 
takes the poetry out of words as well as men. 

One word in the wise man's command has passed 
through this process. "Way" is that word. Origi- 
nally it signified, of course, a road, a highway. Then 
it came to be used as a metaphor in describing moral 
states. Time was when if you spoke of a person's 
way of living, you would suggest to those who heard 
you the picture of a well-beaten path, upon which a 
man was plodding along. But now you never think 
of it as a metaphor. It has become one of the most 
matter-of-fact words in the language. It means only 
a confirmed manner or method. This man, we say, 
has a way of walking, — that one a way of speaking, — 
another one a way of finding fault with everybody. 
In this sense " way " and " habit " are synonymous ; 
and it is in this sense that the wise man uses the 
word. 

We may easily see the significance of the metaphor. 
Habits are ways along which our thoughts or our feel- 
ings or our practices have travelled so frequently that 
they are smooth and well-trodden. Habits are to the 



Habits. 75 

mind what the iron track is to the locomotive, — not 
the power which drives it, not the machinery of which 
it is constructed, — but the means by which its course 
is directed, and its progress toward good or evil is 
facilitated. The most offensive sights, the most loath- 
some thoughts, the most revolting deeds, through 
frequent and long-continued familiarity with them, 
lose all their disgustfulness, and become at last posi- 
tively pleasurable. That which is in the beginning 
difficult to perform, habit in the end makes easy. 
The pianist, in his first lesson, stumbles awkwardly 
over the keys of the piano ; every movement of every 
one of his fingers requires painful attention ; his 
hands have not yet learned to obey simultaneously 
the slightest whisper of his will ; they exhibit a 
troublesome proclivity to follow each other ; and, 
like the blind leading the blind, they often fall into 
a ditch of discord ; and the poor unfledged musician 
thinks that if he ever reaches that happy advance- 
ment at which he shall be able to make his right, 
hand go up the key-board while his left hand is going 
down, it will be a proud day of his life ; but after a 
few months of diligent practice, those very hands of 
his, which it caused him so much trouble to manage 
at the outset, will themselves discourse melodiously 
when he sits down to the piano, leaving his mind free 
to wander over all the earth. He has found the way 
at last 



J 6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

Good habits are not easily formed, but bad habits 
do not require much cultivation. They seem to grow 
spontaneously. Like weeds, the only thing required 
to insure a plentiful crop of them, is negligence. I 
doubt whether any of you are entirely free from bad 
habits. Some of you may not be addicted to any 
vicious practices, but you have certain "ways" which 
are blemishes upon your deportment, if not upon 
your character. To these you have become habitu- 
ated by processes so easy that you are not, nor were 
you ever, conscious of them. Have you not some- 
times been surprised and mortified on being told of 
some such habit into which you had insensibly fallen ? 
You would not believe it at first, but when you set 
a watch upon your conduct, you found it was true. 
How strange it is that these faculties of ours will get 
us into so many difficulties while consciousness is 
napping ! There was a man in my native town who 
always prefaced every reply in conversation with an 
ejaculatory grunt, which I can hardly spell, but for 
which "Hunh!" will stand as well as anything. 
One day a neighbor said to him, — 

"Townsend, what makes you always say 'HmnV 
before you answer a question ? " 

"Hunh, I don't, do I ?" said Townsend. 

A certain eminent Scotch minister, now living, has 
a disagreeable way of shrugging his shoulders while 






Habits. JJ 

preaching. This minister has a colleague who has 
learned the bad habit of his senior. One day the jun- 
ior had been preaching, and the senior, as he was leav- 
ing the church, remarked to an American gentleman 
with him, " Mr. Blank preaches well, but I do wish he 
could correct that bad habit of shrugging his shoul- 
ders." Likely enough, young friends, you have uncon- 
sciously acquired some such habits, which, though not 
immoral, are exceedingly disagreeable ; and you may 
even have criticised in others faults to which you 
yourselves are addicted. 

Bad habits are easily formed, but not easily broken. 
Augustine said that "habit, if not resisted soon, be- 
comes necessity." Not in the strictest sense of the 
word does it ever become necessity, but to human 
eyes it sometimes seems to be little less than that. 
I suppose there never was an individual so firmly held 
under the power of evil habit that he could not if he 
would, by God's grace, release himself from it. I do 
not suppose there ever was a drunkard so utterly de- 
bauched and degraded, that he could not with Divine 
help reform himself; but I have seen many whom I 
felt perfectly certain no power on earth or in heaven 
ever would arrest in their career of misery. Do you 
not every day see strong men wrestling with habits 
which seem to be too mighty for them, — now and 
then getting the mastery for a time, but soon yielding 



78 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

to the power which has so long enthralled them? " A 
brave man battling with the storms of fate * is an in- 
spiring sight ; but a slave to habit trying to break his 
fetters is a sight one cannot look upon without heart- 
sickness. The probabilities of defeat are so many 
that it makes one tremble. 

But you say : " A habit is only a constant repetition 
of certain acts. I see no reason why the repetition 
cannot at any time be arrested. If I am a drunkard, 
all I have to do is to drink the last glass and stop 
there. That will be the end of it. If I am a profane 
swearer, it is only necessary that I should resolve nev- 
er again to take the name of God in vain, and then 
keep my resolution. The whole matter is plainly 
within my power." Yes : so you might reason that a 
bar of steel is only a row or a number of rows of sep- 
arate particles, therefore it must require very little 
strength to break it. The attraction of cohesion which 
binds these particles so firmly together is weak com- 
pared with the force of habit. 

Young people who form bad habits often go from 
bad to worse with terrible rapidity. No young man 
under the dominion of a vicious habit is aware of the 
fearful velocity with which he is sinking from honor and 
integrity toward shame and ruin. If you drop a stone 
from the top of a precipice, it will not merely fall twice 
as far in two seconds as in one, but four times as far; 






Habits. 79 

in three seconds nine times as far as in one, and so on. 
That is the law of falling bodies, and the law of falling 
souls is very like it. 

If these evil habits attack us so insidiously, hold us 
so firmly, and carry us so swiftly toward ruin, we ought 
to be on our guard against them. They are not to be 
trifled with. You might as safely choose tigers and 
panthers for your playmates. It seems to me that hab- 
its do somehow belong to the feline race. They toy 
and dally with a man as a cat plays with a mouse. 
They toss him hither and thither, and he rather likes 
the sport. They handle him with fur mittens, and he 
professes not to believe in claws. Sometimes they 
even permit him to escape for a little distance, and 
though they pounce upon him again before he is 
beyond their reach, he makes no desperate effort to 
release himself; he deems himself safe enough. He 
feels sharp twinges of pain, now and then, but does 
not heed them much, until at length, after the charm 
of the demon is complete, after his courage and 
self-respect are all gone, he starts to find himself in 
the jaws of the destroyer. 

Most of those who have given advice to young peo- 
ple with reference to habits have concerned themselves 
chiefly about bad habits ; and so much has been said 
about them that very little is left for me to say. I turn 
therefore quite willingly to the other side of the ques- 



80 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

tion, and fill the rest of the chapter with a few plain 
considerations concerning good habits. The mere 
avoidance of bad habits will not promote the growth of 
good ones. You may keep the nettles and the pig-weed 
out of your garden by vigorous work, but that will not 
insure you an abundance of fruits and vegetables. On 
the other hand, every gardener knows that the best 
way to keep out the weeds is to plant good seed and 
cultivate it diligently. Therefore I wish to insist es- 
pecially on the importance of forming good habits. 
Virtue of the negative sort is a very questionable com- 
modity. I have known young people whose bad hab- 
its were few, but whose character I did not particularly 
admire. They did not lie, nor swear, nor drink rum, 
nor break the Sabbath, nor do anything else in particu- 
lar. They prided themselves upon their superior 
morality, but I never supposed that leaving undone 
the things which the law has forbidden was the whole 
of morality. Christ has epitomized the law, and what 
is his reading of it ? Is it a prohibition ? Nay, verily ! 
but an explicit and positive command. Not "thou 
shalt not love the world and the flesh and the Devil/' 
but "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart and thy neighbor as thyself. " I think there are 
few classes of people more detestable than those do- 
nothings who manage to steer clear of the interdicts, 
but pay no heed to the inspiring exhortations of Chris- 
tianity. 



Habits. y 8 1 

A certain man had a son, and he said unto him : 
"Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. " At 'evening 
the father inquired : " Son, how many vines hast tnfo* Sk4 _ 
drest to-day ? " And the son replied : " None, father ; 
I have been sleeping under the sycamore-tree ; but I 
have not climbed over the hedge once to-day ! " This 
little parable illustrates the kind of morality, — I fear 
I must say the kind of Christianity, — with which some 
people are well satisfied. But I tell you, young peo- 
ple, such morality and such Christianity are hardly 
worth coveting. If simply to obey the prohibitions 
of the law is the whole duty of man, sticks and stones 
are far better Christians than you can possibly be, 
for they never tell falsehoods, nor steal, nor drink rum, 
nor break the Sabbath. And if you have no higher 
aspiration than to get to the heaven where the sticks 
and stones go, I am sorry for you. 

Good habits are just as efficient in helping one to 
live a life of virtue as bad habits are in accelerating 
his ruin. They are not so easily formed as bad habits ; 
but being formed, they hold one strongly in the right 
path, and powerfully help him forward. Labor which 
is difficult at first, habit makes easy ; self-denials 
which in the first instance seem painful, become to 
those who persevere in them sources of the highest 
pleasure ; deeds of love which in the beginning are for- 
eign to our nature, in the end flow spontaneously from 
4* F 



82 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

our hearts. " Never did any soul do good but it came 
readier to do the same again with more enjoyment. 
Never was any love or gratitude or bounty practised 
but with increasing joy which made the practiser still 
more in love with the fair act. " 

Punctuality is one virtue which ought to become 
habitual with every one of you. It is more a matter 
of habit than many of you think. That this is true 
is evident from the fact that some persons are always 
punctual, no matter what their hindrances may be, 
while others are always tardy, no matter how strong 
may be the reasons for punctuality, nor how easy it 
may be for them to be punctual. I know some sex- 
tons who have never yet been known to ring the 
church-bell at the appointed hour. They are uni- 
formly from five to twenty minutes behind time. I 
know others who have never been known to fail in 
this matter. Some church-goers in every congrega- 
tion are always a little late. Others are always in 
their seats before the service commences. The per- 
son who has formed this habit of punctuality rarely 
finds it difficult to be punctual. The one who has 
formed the habit of dilatoriness is always delayed by 
one imaginary hindrance or another. Circumstances 
always conspire to help the man who makes prompt- 
ness a principle of action, and to hinder the man who 
acts upon the opposite principle. And if you only 



Habits 83 

knew how much of mischief, irritation, and disap- 
pointment are saved by punctuality, and how much 
time and energy are wasted for the want of it, I am 
sure you would make it a point to be punctual. 

The habit of observation is a good one. A thou- 
sand phenomena, curious and beautiful, in nature and 
in human nature, present themselves daily to your 
vision. Try to see some of them. The world is 
stored with knowledge, and any man who will keep 
his eyes open as he goes along may be wise ; but 
thousands pass through the world without knowing 
anything. " Eyes have they, but. they see not." The 
habit of observing closely the facts you witness will 
be of incalculable service to you. Facts are the 
raw material of philosophy, and the mind that has 
acquired the thirst for knowledge finds as much 
pleasure in gathering facts as the miser does in 
heaping up his gold, and vastly more of profit. 

You ought to form habits of study. Some of you 
have completed your school-days, and have entered 
upon the active duties of life. Let me counsel you 
never to cease to be students. Never let a week go by 
without a serious and persevering effort to increase 
your store of useful knowledge. In your school-days 
there were some sciences in which you were especially 
interested. Do not let this interest abate. Stimulate 
it by constant study. Always have some subject for 



84 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living* 

investigation before your minds, to which a portion of 
your leisure shall be devoted. If you have been clas* 
sical students, do not allow your Greek and Latin to 
get rusty. A page now and then of Horace or of 
Memorabilia will be an excellent tonic for your minds. 
If you have been lovers of the physical sciences or 
of mathematics or of philosophy or of history or of 
the fine arts, feed the flame of this enthusiasm. Make 
it a habit to devote some portion of your time to these 
pursuits of culture. 

I know some of you will say that you can find no 
time for these things. I say, you can. If you have 
one thousandth part of the determination and perse- 
verance in this matter that Elihu Burritt or Abraham 
Lincoln had, you will find time nearly every day to 
give to study. Your circumstances can hardly be 
more unfavorable to such pursuits than theirs were, 
and you know what they achieved. But if you would 
accomplish anything, it is quite essential that you 
should crystallize all your studious impulses into a 
studious habit. Spasms of studiousness amount to 
nothing. You must make it as much the rule of your 
life as eating or sleeping. If you do, it will become 
as much a necessity of your life as eating or sleeping. 

Habits of benevolence should be formed in youth. 
I do not wonder that there are so many niggardly 
souls in the world, when I read the advice which is 






Habits. 85 

most commonly given to young folks upon setting out 
in life. "Be sparing"; "Be prudent," "Lay up some- 
thing against a rainy day " ; "A penny saved is as 
good as a penny earned," — these maxims, and such as 
these, are about all the instructions which young per- 
sons receive concerning the use of money. Doubtless 
frugality is one of the cardinal virtues, and I do not 
complain that it has been enjoined upon you ; I only 
complain that most people teach you nothing else. 
And while society is constituted as it is at present, 
while all sorts of baits and bribes are held out to 
stimulate your natural acquisitiveness, I do not think 
it especially needful that I should exhort you to any 
more greediness in the getting, or any more closeness 
in the keeping of money. Something might, however, 
be said concerning the benevolent use of it. I hope 
you will form the habit of doing good with your mon- 
ey, be it much or little. You will have opportunities 
enough. Wherever you live, the destitute and the 
friendless will be in your neighborhood. Quite lit- 
eral are those words of the Master, " The poor have 
ye always with you." And these poor who dwell 
beside your very doors are the ones for whom you 
are especially bound to care. Generally speaking, it 
is no charity to give money to straggling beggars ; in 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred they are impostors, 
and the harm you will do by encouraging them in 



86 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 






vagrancy will more than counterbalance the good you 
might do to some worthy person who chanced to be 
among them. All the charities you have to bestow 
will be needed by those whom you know to be 
worthy. 

Public as well as private charities have a claim up- 
on you. Great enterprises of humanity, which must 
depend for their support upon generous-hearted peo- 
ple, will constantly appeal to you. Not unfrequently 
you will be invited to assist by contributions move- 
ments which relate to the general culture and intel- 
ligence of the communities in which you reside. And 
greater than all is the great cause of Christianity, — 
the maintenance and the spread of Christian insti- 
tutions in this land and all lands, — this will call 
for your aid. Now my advice is that you make it a 
habit to assist all such worthy causes. Be careful 
as you will not to bestow your charities upon un- 
worthy objects (and some care will be needed in 
this) ; but when objects are presented concerning 
which you have no doubt, count it a good-fortune 
that you are able to contribute to them. 

If habits of benevolence are not formed in early 
life, the probabilities are strong that they never will 
be formed. If you do not begin to give when your 
means are small, you will not give when they grow 
larger. With the increase of wealth the desire of 



Habits, 8? 

wealth increases ; grasping grows easier and giving 
grows harder as men grow older. Some young per- 
sons lay large plans for benevolence when their for- 
tunes are acquired; until then they propose to give 
as little as possible. Now in this fair calculation 
there are tw r o mischievous mistakes. In the first 
place, they may never live to accumulate the for- 
tunes out of which they are building their air castles. 
In that case they will be found to have been unfaith- 
ful stewards of what they had. Christian principle 
calls for the consecration of our possessions, — not 
of our anticipations ; and it will.be a poor excuse to 
offer at the end for selfish lives that we had formed 
large plans of giving away in charity money that we 
hoped to possess some time or other. In the second 
place, if these persons live and succeed in getting 
the wealth they are working for, they will by that 
time have the habit of keeping so fixed upon them 
that they cannot, or at least will not, break it off. 
The great majority of all the close-fisted rich men 
began life with resolutions to be liberal when they 
became rich ; but the benevolent impulses of their 
nature, from being held in check so many years, were 
completely paralyzed ; while the acquisitive faculties 
were growing stronger all the time, and at length 
became the dominant force in their characters. You 
have seen some of these people, who make gain 



88 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

their god, and worship it with a degrading devotion. 
I think you do not admire their characters. I think 
you would shudder at the thought that at some time 
you might be like them. There is only one way in 
which you can escape this doom, and that is by 
making it as much your habit to give as to get, so 
that giving and getting shall go hand in hand through 
all your lives. Thus your benevolent impulses will 
be trained and developed equally with your acquisi- 
tive faculties ; and you will find in your charities 
greater pleasure than in your gains ; for " it is more 
blessed to give than to receive." 

My last suggestion is that you turn your religious 
inclinations and impulses into habits. The habit of 
church-going is a good one. I trust you will never 
relinquish it. The young man whose custom it is to 
attend church every Sabbath-day is tolerably certain 
not to be led into crime nor to follow vicious prac- 
tices. As a safeguard, this habit is worth every- 
thing, — to say nothing of the good influences which 
surround one in the house of God. And in this 
matter of church-going, you are hardly aware, per- 
haps, how much depends upon habit. If you are in 
the habit of going, it is easy and delightful to go ; 
you feel restless and discontented if you are com- 
pelled to stay away; but quite a little resolution is 
often needed to re-form the habit when it has once 
been broken off. 



Habits. 89 

Some of you are trying to live the religious life. 
You have discovered that there can be no steady 
religious growth, no consistent Christian living, with- 
out habits of devotion and service. It is just as 
necessary to your religious life and health that you 
should have regular times of prayer and reflection, 
and regular methods of Christian labor, as it is to 
your physical life and health that you should have 
regular times of eating and resting and working. 
And now, before I take leave of you, I want to know 
how many of you pray habitually. Of course those 
who are professors of religion have, such a habit, — I 
do not speak to them, — but there are some among 
you who have never made a profession of religion, to 
whom I want to put this question. Do you still re- 
member, young men and women, those simple peti- 
tions your mother taught you in your childhood, — 
those precious little prayers that so many prattling 
lips have murmured, — do you still remember them, 
and do you yet repeat them ? I hope you do. You 
need not be ashamed of them. One of the greatest 
statesmen of this nation (John Quincy Adams) — he 
whom the people called "the old man eloquent" — 
declared, not long before he died, that he had never 
closed his eyes in slumber without repeating the little 
prayer he learned at his mother's knee, — "Now 
I lay me down to sleep." It is not a weak or un- 



90 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 






manly thing to pray, young friends. Need any one 
be ashamed of bowing every day before the great 
Majesty of the universe, to acknowledge his author- 
ity and ask his blessing ? Need any one be ashamed 
of seeking for a few moments, every day, audience 
and communion with the dear Father of us all, whose 
eye watches us, whose power defends us, whose loving- 
kindness crowns us every day ? Strange indeed would 
be such shame as that ! I do not counsel you merely 
to hold fast the simple forms of prayer which you 
learned in your childhood, but, holding fast the forms, 
let not the spirit depart. Reverently, every day, on 
bended knee, confess your sin and your weakness, 
and your need of help to live aright, and the blessing 
of God, falling silently as the dews at eventide, shall 
descend upon you, bringing strength and joy and rest 
unto your souls. 



VII. 

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL CULTURE. 

WE seem to be entering upon another age of 
brawn. Boating and base-ball — two sports 
that require the greatest amount of physical skill, 
agility, and endurance — are the most popular of all 
the pastimes for young men. Even the young women 
have caught the fever, and are giving unwonted atten- 
tion to out-door amusements. Much time that has 
heretofore been dawdled away with the tatting-hook 
is better spent upon the skating-pond ; the crochet- 
needle has been superseded by the croquet -mallet. 
All these are hopeful symptoms. They indicate a 
healthy reaction from a bad condition. Too little 
attention has been paid to physical culture ; our 
sports have mainly been of the quiet and sedentary 
sort; and many classes of our people have been 
strangers far too long to fresh air and vigorous exer- 
cise. There is danger, however, that this reaction 
will go too far. If brain has been cultivated hereto- 
fore at the expense of brawn, there is some reason to 
fear that in some quarters brawn will henceforth be 
cultivated at the expense of brain. They say that 



92 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, t 

those fine fellows who pulled so lustily the other day 
in the boat-race at Worcester showed in their faces 
that their intellectual development had hardly kept 
pace with their physical development. The greatest 
athletes of this generation are not the greatest phi- 
losophers, if I am rightly informed. The champion 
boxers and boat-racers are far from being giants in 
intellect. Indeed, it seems that the highest physical 
development is only attained by the neglect of the 
mind and the heart. The face of a man who has 
been trained for muscular feats is likely to be as 
stupid and expressionless as the face of a fat steer. 
If you adopt the theory that man is only an animal, 
and cultivate that part of his nature exclusively, you 
can develop a splendid animal, but that which you 
destroy will be worth far more than that which you 
develop. I do not doubt that sound physical health, 
and a good degree of strength and endurance, are 
perfectly compatible with the highest mental develop- 
ment j but I say that the training through which the 
boat-racers and prize-fighters are compelled to go, in 
order that they may be able to perform their super- 
human feats of prowess and endurance, is a training 
that will surely, in every case, impair the mind and 
destroy the finer sensibilities. 

"Tell me, Chawls," said one young swell to an- 
other, " how you contrive to tie such a beautiful knot 
in your cravat." 









Health and Physical Culture. 93 



"Why, you see, Augustus," responds Chawls, "I 
give my whole mind to it." 

Exactly. If you would be a perfect Brummell, you 
must do as Brummell did, — give your whole life to 
dress ; stand before the looking-glass the larger part 
of the time, and rumple several scores of immaculate 
cravats every day in repeated efforts to tie the perfect 
knot. The highest perfection in this art is only at- 
tained by devoting all your thoughts and energies to 
it. You may be able to dress tastefully and becom- 
ingly enough for all practical purposes, by expending 
much less time and effort upon your raiment; but 
you cannot expect to rival the fops in their own 
chosen department, unless you put yourself through 
the same course of training in which tney are exer- 
cising themselves. 

The Japanese acrobats, who have recently been 
performing their marvellous feats of balancing and 
tumbling, for the amusement of the nation, have 
shown what can be done in that direction ; and some 
of you might, perhaps, be able to reach the same 
proficiency in the gymnastic art ; but to this end it 
would be necessary for you to deny yourselves all 
other kinds of culture, and make this the business 
of your lives. In short, you cannot make prodigies 
of yourselves in any one particular, without making 
fools of yourselves in many other particulars. 



94 Plain Ttioughts on the Art of Living, 

It is often necessary for scientific men to choose 
specialties, as Agassiz has done. The field of knowl- 
edge and investigation is so large, that the explorer 
cannot travel over every part of it. He therefore 
chooses some one department of study, and devotes 
his life to that. But the pursuit of one branch of 
study to the neglect of other branches is a very dif- 
ferent thing from the development of one part of the 
nature to the neglect of the rest. Because of the 
shortness of life and the preciousness of knowledge, 
we may approve the devotion of the scientific ex- 
plorer. Though he has but a single aim, it is a noble 
one, and we bid him God speed in the pursuit of it. 
Besides, he is not a man who despises breadth of 
culture. ThCugh his life is given mainly to one 
study, he does not neglect opportunities that come 
to him of increasing his knowledge .of other matters. 
He is constantly hungering for other truth besides 
this of which he is in search ; and though he may 
feel that he cannot go far out of the path he has 
marked out for himself, to glean in other fields, yet 
whatever comes within his reach he greedily appro- 
priates. I suppose such a man as Agassiz must feel, 
at times, that the life he has chosen for himself is a 
life of painful self-denial. Other paths of study, in 
which he knows he could find abundant pleasure, 
stand invitingly open, and he cannot refuse to enter 






Health and Physical Culture. 95 

them without some pangs of regret. Still, we all 
know that the culture of Agassiz is not all in one 
direction. He finds time to think of the wants of 
his body, of the needs of his heart, of the claims 
of society, and to give to each a portion in due 
season. No one part of his nature is cultivated at 
the expense of the rest; he only chooses that his 
intellectual work shall be done mainly upon a certain 
branch of natural history. The pugilists and the 
gymnasts we were talking about are able to excel 
because they give the whole of their time and energy 
to bodily culture, — neglecting the culture of the 
mind and the heart. That, we can all see, is very 
different in principle from the choices which are made 
by such men a*s Agassiz. 

However, it may be that the pugilists and the acro- 
bats are of some use in society. So far as they are 
themselves concerned, their lives are miserable fail- 
ures. We are all pretty well convinced, when we see 
them, that they have by no means reached the chief 
end of man ; but God often makes the folly of man, 
as well as the wrath of man, to praise him ; and 
these men are made to serve as examples and as 
warnings. Examples they are of the perfection to 
which the human body is capable of being brought, 
and warnings to all men that such perfection cannot 
be reached without paying for it vastly more than 



g6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

it is worth. I trust, young folks, that Providence 
does not need any of you for such purposes of il- 
lustration. 

My theory is, that the development of the human 
nature ought to be as nearly as possible a^ symmet- 
rical development. The body ought not to be cul- 
tivated at the expense of the mind, nor the mind at 
the expense of the body. There ought to be muscle 
enough to execute the mental decrees, and mind 
enough to control and guide toward wise ends the 
muscular forces. And not only should the balance 
be kept between the physical and intellectual parts 
of the nature, but all the faculties should be har- 
moniously developed. If one part of the building 
goes up much faster than the rest, tRere is danger 
that it may topple over ; if all the parts go up sim- 
ultaneously, they join to support each other. 

By many of you this energetic protest against 
an abnormal development of muscularity will not 
be needed. While most of you are sufficiently in- 
terested in those sports which demand physical 
strength and agility, very few of you, perhaps, 
give so much thought as you should to bodily 
health and culture. Now, although I may be a 
little less enthusiastic than some of the amateur 
oarsmen in regard to the development of muscle, I 
wish to insist, with all earnestness, upon the duty 



Health and Physical Culture. 97 

of caring for health. And yet I have a presentiment 
that all the ink I shed on this topic will be wasted. 
Young folks, within my observation, are shockingly 
careless of their health, and resolutely sceptical with 
regard to ail the advice which is given them on the 
subject by their elders. They are so sound and 
hearty, so full of blood and vigor, that the suggestion 
of ill-health seems to them positively absurd. I 
know how it is with you, young folks, for I have been 
where you are, and it was not very long ago, either. 
When people lectured me about my carelessness, I 
used to laugh at them. The idea that I should per- 
manently injure my health by the trifling imprudences 
of which they complained, was a good joke, — it was 
really. They had better keep their hygienic prescrip- 
tions for the old grannies, — I had no need of them ! 
So if work was pressing, I could keep right at it, 
night and day, only stopping long enough for a hasty 
meal, occasionally, and sleeping not more than ten 
hours in six days. \ had no fear that excitement, or 
overwork, or irregular habits, or unwholesome diet 
would ever seriously affect me. Not until the mis- 
chief had been done could I see that there was the 
slightest cause for apprehension. And though I am 
not an invalid now, by any means, yet every day I am 
fettered and limited in work and enjoyment by those 
early mistakes, and I know that they have shortened 
5 G 



98 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

my life ?t least ten years ! Not by vice or dissipa- 
tion, but simply by imprudence, — by disobedience 
of the simplest laws of health; by careless feeding 
and loss of rest, by cramming the neglected work 
of a week into a day and a night, — by such foolish 
courses, against which I was well warned by good 
friends, has this result been reached. Many of you 
are following in the same courses to-day, and I have 
very little hope that anything I can say will convince 
you of their danger. You are determined to learn 
by experience. Well, experience is a pretty thorough 
teacher. The only misfortune is, that her most valua- 
ble lessons are not learned till it is too late to profit 
by them. 

I shall not attempt to give you any specific direc- 
tions with regard to the care of your health. You 
already know vastly more than you practise. But I 
think you might get some useful hints from the prize- 
fighters and the oarsmen. You have heard of the 
carefulness with which their habits of eating and ex- 
ercise are regulated. They do not confine themselves 
to a bran diet, by any means. They partake freely 
of nutritious animal food; but all condiments and 
pastes and rich delicacies they entirely eschew. 
They have found by experience that the physical sys- 
tem cannot be kept in perfect health if it is fed with 
the greasy and spicy compounds of which we are so 



Health and Physical Culture. 99 

fond. I wish you would get the bill of fare which the 
Ward brothers adopt while they are in training, and 
examine it. You might not feel bound to restrict your- 
selves quite so closely as they do, but you would get 
some valuable notions in regard to wholesome food. 

Not only are they careful in regard to their diet, 
but they observe the utmost regularity in their exer- 
cise and their rest. Every day, whether it rain or 
shine, they must have so many hours of muscular 
work j every night they must have so many hours of 
undisturbed sleep. By a strict adherence to this 
rigid regimen, they bring their bodies into such a 
splendid condition that they can pull six miles in less 
than forty minutes, with hardly the quickening of a 
pulse or the shortening of a breath. " Every man 
that strive th for the mastery," says Paul, " is tem- 
perate in all things." It is no new discovery that 
these athletes of the present day have made. The 
same laws of bodily culture w r ere known and ob- 
served in the old days of the Olympic races. 

And if these men will do as much as this to secure 
a corruptible crown, how much should we do to 
secure an incorruptible ! Merely to wear the cham- 
pionship belt of the boxer, or to carry the champion 
flag of the oarsman, men will deny themselves in- 
jurious indulgences, and put themselves through 
courses of careful training. The end which they 



ioo Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

choose is not the highest, but the means by which 
they attain it are worth our study. Something of 
the same care and self-denial are necessary to pre- 
pare us for the most efficient performance of our 
work, whatever it may be. 

My observation leads me to believe that most of 
those men whom the world recognizes as men of great 
power have sound health and vigorous physical organ- 
izations. The instances are rare in which invalids or 
men of feeble frames and weak nerves have made 
much impression upon their fellows. I do not know 
that I have ever heard a great orator who was not a 
strong and hearty man. The two great pulpit orators 
of the age — Mr. Beecher and Mr. Spurgeon — are 
both stout, ruddy-faced, vigorous men. I have never 
seen Mr. Spurgeon ; but I never hear Mr. Beecher 
speak without feeling that his excellent health, and 
his great power of physical endurance, contribute 
largely to his success. In all probability neither of 
these great men would ever have been heard of as 
orators beyond the bounds of their own parishes, 
if they had not been endowed by nature with 
good constitutions, and had not taken care of them. 
The fluency of speech, the vividness of imagination, 
the quickness of wit, the clearness of insight which 
they possess, would have been barren gifts if they had 
not been vitalized by an abundance of animal life. 



Health and Physical Culture. ioi 

There is a magnetism in health and vigor which goes 
far to make up for defects in oratory ; and only when 
you find rare intellectual gifts combined with splendid 
physical powers do you find a great orator. Very few 
persons except those who have tried it are aware how 
severely public speaking taxes the physical strength. 
Perhaps some of you have had the evil fortune at 
some time to be very angry for a few moments. You 
know that when the fit passed away, it left you as weary 
as if you had done a hard day's work. Now the excite- 
ment under which the public speaker often finds him- 
self is as intense as the excitement of anger, and the 
weariness of bearing it is increased by the constant 
endeavor to control it ; while instead of lasting only 
a few moments, like the fit of anger, it is protracted 
perhaps for an hour or two. How great a draft it 
makes upon the body you can imagine. It is true 
that many public speakers are never greatly roused, 
but no man who has not some excitability ever makes 
much impression as an orator. And no man can bear 
such stress and strain of passion as you often witness 
in Beecher or in Gough, without a powerful frame, 
strong nerves, and a perfect digestive apparatus. 

What is true of oratory is true of every other work 
and calling. The lawyer needs for his profession the 
same bodily vigor. Instances innumerable will arise 
in which the lack of nerve and physical stamina will 



102 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

surely overthrow him. He cannot manage the wit- 
nesses, the juries, and the opposing counsel ; above all, 
he cannot control himself as he should, if he is not a 
thoroughly healthy man. The surgeon whose stomach 
is disordered, and whose nerves are not in prime con- 
dition, will never have the courage and confidence that 
are required to operate successfully. The merchant 
or the manufacturer who fails in health is far more 
likely to fail in business. In short, young folks, it is 
safe to say that, unless you have good vigorous health, 
the chances are ten to one that you never will amount 
to anything in any department of life. I presume you 
all have some ambition to succeed in life. Remem- 
ber then that the first condition of success is a sound 
body. 

It is worth while to care for the body, not only 
because of what it is able to do for us, but because of 
what it is in itself. It is the most intricate and beau- 
tiful piece of mechanism in the world, and we have 
no right to mar it by carelessness or to injure it by 
neglect. Just as I was writing this paragraph, a 
paper was laid upon my table, in which I find these 
words of Henry Ward Beecher : — 

"I like to go past an engine-house and see those rude 
sons of industry fondle and pet their engine. Some- 
times I think it is their little god. How they rub it ! 
How they clean it ! How they oil it ! How they put 



Health and Physical Culture, 103 

flowers upon it ! Why, they know what it can do, 
They are proud of it. They have seen it play. They 
have seen how well it performs in the hour of danger. 
It has stuff in it. It is a brave engine. They person- 
ify and give attributes to it. They love it. They talk 
to it. And they rub the brass and clean the leather 
and keep everything nice and all right about it." 

And yet these very fellows, who show so high an ap- 
preciation of the excellence of their fire-engines, and 
take so good care of them, often utterly neglect their 
own bodies. They are more careful of the wood and 
brass and leather of " the machine," than they are of 
their own flesh and blood. If some enemy should 
pour sulphuric acid into its bright cylinder, or gash the 
suction hose with his jackknife, they would be ready 
to fight. But they pour into their own stomachs fierce 
and fiery liquor, and sever the sinews of their own 
strength in midnight revelries. They are not an ex- 
ceptional class. Very few indeed of the children of 
men have any just regard for their own bodies. As 
the truths of physiology are more widely known, and 
the relations of the body and the spirit are better 
understood, I trust there will be more attention to this 
great matter. And yet physiology and psychology can 
do no more than reiterate these solemn words of 
inspiration : — 

" What ! know ye not that your body is the temple 



104 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 






of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of 
God, and ye are not your own ? " 

" If any man defile the temple of God, him shall 
God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which 
temple ye are." 



VIII. 
MIND CULTURE. 

SOME of you are yet "under tutors and school- 
masters." What I have to say in this conversa- 
tion is not intended chiefly for this class, but they are 
welcome to any truth they may find in it. The only 
advice I have to give young folks who are pursuing 
courses of education is, that they make the most of 
their advantages. I am afraid, however, that the 
counsel will strike them as not being strictly original. 
But with many of you the school-days are past and 
you never expect them to return. I am addressing 
clerks, apprentices, young mechanics, factory opera- 
tives, shop-girls, — many classes of young persons, 
the greater part of whom have had the advantages 
of the common school ; some of whom, perhaps, 
have gone higher, into the academy or the college, 
but whose education is finished now so far as the 
schoolmasters are concerned. Some of you had but 
limited opportunities, and you are sorry that they 
were not better. Some of you had plenty of opportu- 
nities, and you are sorry that you did not improve 
them more diligently. Most of you are conscious of 
5* 



106 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

deficiencies in respect of culture, and often wish that 
you might possess a better education. But to very few 
of you, I suspect, does it ever occur that a good edu- 
cation is yet within your reach. And yet such is the 
fact. In this age of cheap books and libraries, there is 
no need that any man or woman should lack a liberal 
education. And I am going to show you, if I can, 
how you can get it, and how much the getting of it 
and the possession of it will be worth to you. I don't 
know that there is any kind of knowledge of which the 
monopoly is held by the schools and the schoolmas- 
ters. While it is true, on the one hand, that there is 
no royal road to learning, it is equally true, on the 
other hand, that there is no road to learning which is 
not open to all classes. Of course the schools afford 
facilities of education that are valuable, and the work 
of acquiring knowledge is harder for those who are 
obliged to study without these facilities, but it is not 
so hard that it cannot be performed with signal suc- 
cess by any one who has a mind to undertake it. 

In the study of the sciences, for instance, the appa- 
ratus which is found in the school-room is serviceable 
to the student ; but most of the school-books will tell 
you how you may construct for yourselves apparatus 
of a simple nature that will answer all practical pur- 
poses. What you cannot make you can purchase at 
a trifling cost. And nothing is more certain than that 



Mind Culture. 107 

the construction of this apparatus, and the experi- 
ments which you perform with it, will give you a clear- 
er notion of the principles of the science which it is 
intended to illustrate than you would be likely to get 
in the best academy under the most skilful teachers. 
What one works out with his own brains and hands he 
knows thoroughly. What is shown him by somebody 
else he does not half know. You might acquire the 
principles of a science more quickly with a teacher ; 
but your understanding of them would be much less 
clear and satisfactory than if you mastered them alone. 

For the study of most of the natural sciences your 
materials are ready to your hands. All you need is a 
text-book to guide you in your investigations. The 
facts which you are to study and classify are all about 
you in nature. Botany, chemistry, zoology, mineral- 
ogy, natural philosophy, all relate to phenomena 
which are before your eyes every day. All they at- 
tempt to do is to explain these phenomena, and to 
refer them to certain natural laws. These sciences 
open to you a most inviting field of study ; they will 
lead you into habits of research and of generaliza- 
tion ; and thus will serve at the same time to furnish 
and to train your minds. 

In the study of the pure mathematics a teacher is 
even less 'necessary than in the study of the natural 
sciences. No student who wants to learn algebra or 



io8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

geometry or the calculus can afford to have any help. 
It is absolutely essential to the thoroughness of his 
knowledge of these studies that he should go every 
step of the way alone. Every problem that is solved, 
every equation that is reduced, every theorem that is 
demonstrated for him by somebody else, is a hin- 
drance rather than a help to him. It is quite neces- 
sary in schools and colleges, where the majority of 
students only study because they are compelled to 
study, that there should be regular hours of recita- 
tion, regular tasks, and a teacher to assign them and 
to judge whether they have been performed ; but the 
office of the teacher of mathematics is not to give 
the student assistance in his work ; it is only to 
stimulate him in his work, and to hold him firmly to 
his work, — asking questions instead of answering 
them, and suggesting problems instead of resolving 
them. Any student who is determined not merely to 
get through his text-books, but to be a mathematician, 
will repel any offer of help. Mathematical knowl- 
edge can no more be acquired by proxy than food or 
exercise can be taken by proxy. It is no disadvan- 
tage to you then, in the pursuit of this branch of 
study, that you are compelled to dispense with a 
teacher. You may not get over the ground quite so 
rapidly as they do in the colleges, but you will ad 
vance fast enough, if you are diligent. 



Mind Culture. 109 

That languages can be acquired without the aid of 
a teacher, is a truth of which we have many illustra- 
tions. Mr. Elihu Burritt, one of the most accom- 
plished linguists of the age, is a self-taught scholar ; 
and he is only one of a large number who have made 
great attainments in this direction without aid from 
any quarter. Some of you may know an eminent 
divine who, while a poor mechanic, acquired so much 
Latin and Greek that it has nearly swamped him in 
his ministry. The great obstacle to his success has 
been that he knows these languages too well. There 
is no reason, then, why you should not make your- 
selves masters of the dead languages, if you have any 
ambition in this direction. The modern languages 
are easier to acquire, however ; and I should counsel 
you to give them the preference. And although, with 
the aid of the excellent text-books which you can 
procure, it is possible to learn any of these languages 
without a teacher, yet for the sake of the pronuncia- 
tion, it is better to study them with a teacher. And 
this it will not be difficult for you to do if you desire 
it. There is hardly a neighborhood in which some 
person may not be found who is competent to give you 
the assistance you need in these studies, and who will 
be glad to hear an occasional recitation from you. 

ft But how shall we find the time for these stud- 
ies ? " you ask. Let us see. Some of you are me- 



1 10 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

chanics and mechanics' apprentices. You work at 
present ten hours a day, and are trying to have the 
number of your working-hours reduced to eight. But 
under the present arrangement fourteen hours out of 
the twenty-four belong to you. Eight of these hour; 
should be sacred to sleep. If you are employed in- 
doors, two hours at least should be spent in the fresh 
air. And out of the four remaining hours I think 
you can spare two every day for study. Some of you 
are clerks, and though you are on duty more than ten 
hours a day, there is much time in the course of every 
week during which you are not occupied. If all the 
time which you waste in absolute idleness — waiting 
for customers and gossiping with your fellow-clerks — 
were spent in study, you might make great progress 
in many branches of science. And there are very 
few of you, I suspect, who might not by a wise econ- 
omy of time save two or three hours out of the 
twenty-four for study. Some of the young women to 
whom I am talking spend as much time as this in 
tinkering their back hair. If they gave half as 
much care to the inside of their heads as they give to 
the outside, they would rapidly augment their store 
of useful knowledge, and greatly increase their attrac- 
tiveness in the eyes of all sensible young men. 

" But suppose we study two hours a day, how much 
can we accomplish in that way ? " Two hours a day 



1 



Mind Culture. Ill 

of faithful study, judiciously directed, will in ten years 
give you a better, broader, more thorough education, 
than nine tenths of the collegians have on the day of 
their graduation. I don't mean that you will have 
learned by that time everything knowable, but you 
will have laid an excellent foundation, on which you 
can continue to build through all your lives. Two 
hours a day for six months devoted to the study of 
chemistry will enable you, if you have ordinary bright- 
ness of intellect, to know more about that science 
than nine tenths of the bachelors of arts know. My 
observation leads me to believe that not one tenth of 
the students in college give so much time as that to 
chemistry. Of course you cannot in six months, with 
two hours of daily study, learn so much about chem- 
istry as Liebig or Draper knows ; but you could get 
a fair understanding of the principles of the science, 
— enough to give you great satisfaction, and to enable 
you to carry forward your future investigations with 
intense relish. The same thing might be said of 
other sciences. Some of them require longer and 
some of them shorter time to master their rudi- 
ments. The process of acquiring a language is 
a little slower. But I think that one year of faith- 
ful study, at the rate of two hours a day, with 
some aid from a teacher, would qualify many of 
you to read either French or German with considera- 



112 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

ble ease. To learn to speak it well would take 
longer. Some persons acquire language much more 
easily than others, but a young man or woman of 
average power in this direction will readily accom- 
plish what I have indicated. 

If any of you are disposed to set about this work 
in earnest, let me tell you one thing that it will b 
useful for you to know. If you have not been in 
the habit of study for some months or years, you will 
find the beginning exceedingly hard. It will be diffi- 
cult for you to fix your minds upon the subject in 
hand, and all your mental operations will be sluggish 
and painful. A kind of bewilderment will come over 
you occasionally, and you will begin to wonder if your 
mind has not lost the alertness and vigor which it 
formerly possessed. But if you hold yourself steadily 
to the work for a week or two, this dulness will pass 
away, and you will come to your studies with zest. 

Education consists of two things, — the acquisition 
of knowledge, and the training of the mental faculties. 
In the pursuit of the studies I have mentioned both 
these objects are attained. But it happens that the 
minds of human beings are not all alike. It seems 
to me that minds may be divided into two classes, — 
the logical and the intuitive. The line that separates 
these two classes runs, with some deflections, between 
the two sexes. There is a radical difference in the 



n 



Mind Culture, 113 

methods by which men and women ordinarily reach 
conclusions. Men rely more upon reasoning, women 
more upon intuition. This is the general fact. There 
are women whose minds are essentially logical, and 
men whose minds are essentially intuitive, but they 
are exceptions to the rule. Generally, a man takes up 
a subject and goes from step to step in a consecutive 
argument. He says if this is so, then that must be so ; 
and if that is so, the other thing necessarily follows ; 
hence the proposition is true. The woman looks 
over the whole ground at a glance, and says, " I know 
the proposition is true." And if you ask her how she 
knows it, she will probably reply, " Because I do know 
it." We philosophizing and syllogizing mortals some- 
times sneer at this kind of wisdom, but I am not sure 
that it is not the highest kind of wisdom. Intuitions 
are surer than deductions, if they come from a pure 
mind and an uncorrupted heart. One chief secret 
of woman's influence is found in her moral intuitions 
and the earnestness with which they inspire her. 

The courses of study commonly marked out for 
young men and women respectively have been such 
as to develop those powers for which each sex is dis- 
tinguished, to the neglect of those in which each is 
deficient. Young men have been trained in classics, 
mathematics, logic, and metaphysics ; young women 
have had but little training in these severer studies, 

H 



1 14 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

and have given much more time to music and poetry 
and painting. Now it is doubtless well that the cul- 
ture of each sex should be so directed that the pe- 
culiar gifts of each should be healthily developed ; 
but a one-sided culture should be carefully guarded 
against. You can often see among educated me 
the unfortunate results of a system of training whic 
has developed their logical faculties, to the neglect 
of the intuitive and poetical faculties. The worst 
blunders and the fiercest quarrels of theology have 
arisen from this source. It has been the constant 
effort of most of the theological thinkers to put God 
and the universe into logical categories, to reduce 
all religious truth to algebraic formulas, and in these 
preposterous attempts their feelings have been soured 
and the range of their vision has been narrowed. 
Many of the most precious religious truths can only 
be revealed to us through imagination or feeling ; 
the moment we attempt to imprison them in propo- 
sitions, they elude us, and fly away to their native 
heaven. By the study of a proposition in dogmatic 
theology, you can often gain no better idea of the 
truth which it aims to exhibit than you could gain 
of a bird of paradise by studying, after the bird had 
flown, the cage in which the hunter had tried to 
entrap him. To be a good theologian, a man needs 
something more than logical culture. His insight, 



d 

; 



Mind Culture. 115 

his imagination, his poetical faculties, all must be 
cultivated, or he will miss more than half the mean- 
ing of the truths with which he is to deal. One ob- 
ject of a course of study should therefore be to 
supply to each student that in which he is lacking, 
and to train those faculties of his mind which are 
feeblest. I should advise young women not to neg- 
lect mathematics and logic, and young men to cul- 
tivate their tastes for poetry and the fine arts. It 
will be well if you can ascertain in which of the two 
classes mentioned your minds belong, and then you 
can cultivate that part in which you are deficient. 
What you are to aim at is a balance of mind, a 
symmetry and completeness of culture. 

A large part of every good education is gained by 
reading. In this age of cheap printing, it is the easiest 
and simplest method of acquiring knowledge, and it 
may be a most valuable means of mental discipline. 
Not all reading has this effect, however. Many young 
people, and some who are not so young, read noth- 
ing but exciting fictions. The result reached in their 
cases is not mental discipline, but mental dissipation. 
Of course none of those who belong to this class are 
reading these homely thoughts ; but there may be 
some even among you who have fed so much upon the 
highly spiced sensation novels of Miss Braddon and 
Mrs. Southworth, and all that race, that you find the 



1 1 6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

words of men who write for thinkers tame and taste- 
less. It may be that some of you read fictions only 
for the sake of the story, skipping all the philosophy 
and all the analysis of character, — everything which 
does not help to unravel the plot. Nothing can be 
more enervating to the mind than such a habit. If 
you are conscious that you are in any danger what- 
ever from this source, apply immediately the heroic 
treatment. Eschew at once, and, if not forever, for 
a long time, all sorts of fictions, and devote your- 
selves resolutely to solid reading. You need not 
choose books that are intrinsically stupid, for there is 
no merit in dulness ; take some good history, like 
Macaulay's History of England or Motley's Dutch 
Republic ; or Guizot's History of Civilization ; or 
some such philosophical treatise as Hopkins's Moral 
Science, or Mill's Essay on Government, or Ecce 
Homo; and read it and ponder it till you under- 
stand it all. Do not pass by a sentence till it is 
clear to you ; study a single page for a day or a week 
or a month, if you cannot sooner grasp its meaning ; 
and thus you may be able to restore to your minds 
the power which they are fast losing under the de- 
bilitating influence of sensational fiction. You may 
say that you never had any taste for such reading as 
this which I have indicated. If so, that is the very 
reason why you should take it up. Such tastes are 






Mind Culture. 117 

not altogether natural to many persons. In a good 
degree they are acquired. And if you do not pos- 
sess them, the best thing you can do is to acquire 
them speedily. It will cost you some resolution, 
some perseverance, some self-denial ; but it will abun- 
dantly repay any reasonable outlay of these virtues. 

Of the benefits of such a course of study as I have 
recommended to you much might be said. The 
knowledge which you will thus gather, and the habits 
of philosophic thought which you will thus form, will 
be of constant service to you in the ordinary affairs 
of life. A woman to whom the laws of natural sci- 
ence are familiar finds use for them in the duties of 
her household. She knows not only the rules by 
which her culinary operations are performed, but the 
principles upon which the rules are based ; and thus 
she is able to vary her processes as the conditions 
vary. No small portion of the labor and the morti- 
fication of the housekeeper would be avoided if work 
that is done by rote should be guided by reason. A 
great painter once said, in answer to a question, that 
he mixed his colors with brains. Bread mixed with 
brains would be more certain to rise than that which 
is compounded with ignorance. 

An educated man will find his knowledge of math- 
ematics, of science, even of language, of great prac- 
tical service to him in any calling. And there is an 



1 1 8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

advantage in bringing study and work together. The 
uses and relations of knowledge are more apt to be 
appreciated. Commonly a certain number of years 
are devoted to study, and then study is laid aside anc 
work is taken up. The result is a practical divorce 
between science and life, between education and 
affairs. The knowledge which is gathered is never 
used. But you who study while you are working will 
be quick to perceive the application of any principle 
or law you may discover to the labor you are per- 
forming. Thus you will not only fasten this principle 
in your minds, but, by bringing it out of the realm 
of abstractions into the realm of uses, you will per- 
form a service for your kind. 

But the benefits of study are not mainly material. 
Your minds will be enlarged by it. It will enable 
you to take juster and more comprehensive views of 
life. It will expel from your minds many narrowing 
prejudices. It will exalt and purify your ideas con- 
cerning the great Author of the universe. It will 
give you authority and influence among men. It 
will be an important aid to you in overcoming the 
tyranny of worldliness. 

The multitudes about you are engaged in an eager 
and unceasing strife for worldly gain and advantage. 
Riches, reputation, respectability, — these are the 
three false gods of the bad trinity, before which all 



Mind Culture. 119 

the people bow down and worship. However scep- 
tical some may be upon other subjects, there are few 
who do not pronounce this creed with a hearty sin- 
cerity. There is something appalling in the mad 
persistence with which men are rushing after these 
things. The great majority of people become infat- 
uated with regard to them. All their views of life 
are distorted. There is no mental soundness in 
them. Their ruling passions so completely get the 
mastery of them, that they live as the fool liveth, — 
spending all their strength for naught, and gathering 
as the harvest of their lives nothing but things cor- 
ruptible. You are about to enter the lists with these 
mad votaries of material and worldly good. You 
must follow their avocations, you must mingle in 
their society, and there is danger that you will come 
to adopt their views of life. And it seems to me that 
such a studious habit and purpose as I have sug- 
gested may help to keep your minds in a healthier 
condition. If you are wont to devote a portion of 
each day to the pursuit of useful knowledge, you will 
in that way secure for your minds rest and relaxation 
from the excitements and irritations of the worldly 
life. The tendency of material pursuits is to belit- 
tle the mind ; the tendency of intellectual pursuits 
is to give it freedom and enlargement. The investi- 
gation of truth will lift you into a higher and purer 



120 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

atmosphere than that which you breathe in the marts 
and caucuses and saloons. Only the selfish propen- 
sities of your nature are cultivated in your worldly 
life, while the study of truth is wholly an unselfish 
pursuit, and in it the nobler parts of your nature 
will find discipline and culture. When you come 
back to your daily toil and companionship, after such 
communings with the truth, your selfish ambitions 
will be chastened, your better impulses will be 
strengthened. No man or woman who has fixed 
habits of study can become wholly a slave to world- 
liness in any of its forms. 

"Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go; 
keep her, for she is thy life." 

"She shall give to thine head an ornament of 
grace; a crown of glory shall she deliver unto 
thee." 

" Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the 
man that getteth understanding. For the merchan- 
dise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, 
and the gain thereof than fine gold." 



IX. 

SUCCESS. 

ONE of the % self-made men of the nation has 
given us his motto, " Success is a duty." 
The aphorism has truth in it, but it is not quite 
original. It is only a paraphase of the old injunc- 
tion, " So run that ye may obtain. " The tent-maker 
of Tarsus was not -less wise in his generation than 
the Bobbin Boy of Massachusetts. 

In the old Grecian races thdgs was only one prize 
for the multitude of competitors. Though all of 
them ran well, all but one would go back to the 
starting-point disappointed. But in the races of life, 
all who run well are _ crowned. There need be no 
rivalry in these contests. Men are matched, not 
against men, but against difficulties and hindrances. 
Whoever passes all these and reaches the goal, re- 
ceives the palm of victory. Paul's injunction sup- 
poses this. " So run that ye may obtain." Ye may 
all obtain. The crown is within your reach. Suc- 
cess is possible; therefore succeed. 

I am aware that Paul uses this figure with refer- 
ence to the Christian life, but it is quite pertinent 
6 



122 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

to worldly as well as to spiritual things. "So run 
that ye may obtain," is as good advice for young 
lawyers, young tradesmen, young mechanics, young 
workers in any calling, as for young Christians. 
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do" (not only make 
mighty efforts to do, but) " do it," — accomplish it, 
"with thy might." Provision is not made in a 
sound philosophy for failure, in any lawful under- 
taking. We are called upon not only to try to be 
masters of our situations in life, but to be masters of 
them. If the world be an oyster, according to the 
proverb, our business is to open it, not to stand 
haggling at it till it spoils. 

Paul the Apostle not only preached this doctrine, 
but practised it. One who reads his life attentively 
will be led to believe that the fundamental convic- 
tion of his heart was that it was his duty to succeed. 
We have no means of judging how good a mechanic 
he was, but it would be safe to conjecture that he was 
an excellent one. I presume that few of his shop- 
mates could make better tents, or more in a week, 
than Saul could. "Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily," 
is his counsel to laboring men ; and it is natural to 
suppose that in this less conspicuous work he was as 
faithful and as successful as in his preaching of the 
Gospel. 

How good a lawyer he was we have the best 






Success. 123 

means of knowing. The speeches and the letters he 
has left us prove that he thoroughly understood that 
profession. And when, in the days of his apostleship, 
he was called before courts and councils to answer 
charges made against him, the yells of execration and 
the clouds of dust his enemies raised in reply to his 
calm arguments out of the law showed plainly how 
conclusive those arguments were. He was stoned 
down once, and whipped down eight times, but he 
was never reasoned down. 

No less energetic and thorough was he in his per- 
secution of the Christians. Honestly believing as he 
did that he was doing God service in exterminating 
those hateful and blasphemous Nazarenes, he drove 
them from city to city with a zeal so intense that it 
was almost furious. Up to the time of his conversion 
there lived in Jerusalem no more dangerous enemy 
of the Christian Church. 

Afterward, in his missionary labors, his indomitable 
energy wrought still greater wonders. Obstacles van- 
ished before him \ enemies quailed and fled from his 
path; perils, shipwrecks, scourgings, hunger, treach- 
ery, — all were insufficient to hinder him in the course 
he had begun. Think of the work which this one 
man accomplished ! Almost every important city in 
the East was shaken by his influence. He spent no 
time in skirmishing with the detached forces of hea* 



124 Plain Thoughts on the. Art of Living. 

thenism, nor in foraging through the solitudes. He 
carried the war into the walled cities, and boldly con- 
fronted the learning and the cunning of the wisest 
men in the world. Rome, Philippi, Athens, Corinth, 
Thessalonica, Ephesus, — all the great centres of civ- 
ilization, — were the scenes of his conflicts and his 
triumphs. Saying nothing about the nature of the 
work he did, his success in it is marvellous. 

It is altogether fitting that a man of such courage 
and such achievements should give us this counsel, 
" So run that ye may obtain." The words get more 
than half their meaning from the man who stands 
behind them. 

This truth, like every other, is capable of perver- 
sion. It is our duty to succeed ; but what is success ? 
That is a question which every young man should 
fully settle in his own mind before he begins his life- 
work. The answer which he gives to it will be the 
key to his future history. Let us bring the question to 
the test of life. Here is a merchant about to retire 
from business with several hundred thousand dollars. 
The world calls him a successful man, and pays him 
that insincere homage which is always given to suc- 
cess. But what is his history? Much of his wealth 
has been obtained by rapacity and dishonesty ; if not 
by these, by cold selfishness and wanton disregard 
of the interests of other people. Poor seamstresses, 



Success. 125 

plying the needle for him in solitary garrets, by the 
light of dim candles, far into the night, have been 
stinted in their wages and oppressed by hard bar- 
gains, until they have been driven forth to lives of 
infamy. The bounties this man has sometimes dealt 
with liberal hand poorly atone for the extortions he 
has practised all his life long. In short, you discover 
that he has paved the way to prosperity with injustice 
and selfishness. The injuries he has inflicted upon 
others have recoiled upon himself. For even as 
mercy is twice blessed, so heartless greed is twice 
cursed. It curses its subject not less than its object. 
All the better parts of the human nature are de- 
stroyed by such a life as this. What is a man good 
for, when his tenderness and generosity and chivalry 
are all gone? 

Do you call such a man as this a successful man ? 
Most people do, but do you ? If you do, you make 
a terrible mistake. Wealth gotten at the expense of 
the finer feelings and nobler impulses of the nature 
is not gain, but loss, — irreparable loss. Competence 
built upon the basis of injustice and moral degrada- 
tion is not success, but failure, — miserable, total fail- 
ure ! What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ? 

Here is a statesman who occupies a conspicuous 
place among the counsellors of the people. With 



126 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

rapid strides advancing, he has attained political 
power and prominence. His name is known, if it is 
not loved, throughout the land, and the newspapers 
trumpet his success. But he reached this eminence 
by the tortuous and dangerous road of policy. His 
record is the record of a* wandering star. He has 
learned to be all things to all men, not in the apos- 
tolic, but in the hypocritic sense, that he may by all- 
means get office. He has watched the tide of public 
sentiment, and has drifted with it, no matter whether 
it set toward the headlands of justice or the depths 
of iniquity ; he has declaimed in one section to flatter 
the popular vanity, and he has denounced in another, 
to appease the popular prejudice ; he has changed 
front as often as a weathercock on a windy day, and 
has made many an unsavory meal upon his own 
words. By these means, and others more question- 
able, he has gained distinction and favor upon the 
earth. Men call him a successful politician. What 
do you call him? I tell you that if ruin be not a 
meaningless word, that man is ruined. If there is 
any object this side the gates of hell more degraded 
or more despicable than an unscrupulous politician, 
I have yet to find it. If a man will sacrifice the 
public good to his own lust for power, there is no 
other crime that he will not commit, if opportunity 
be offered. 






Stcccess. 127 

It is quite plain that the acquisition of wealth or 
fame, or position in society, is not necessarily success, 
in the best meaning of that word. When, by a life 
of rectitude and benevolence, one gains any or all 
of these possessions, you may well call him success- 
ful, but not if he acquires them by dishonesty or a 
lack of manliness. The matter is very plain, young 
men. You have either already entered upon your 
life-work or you are about to enter upon it, and it is 
your duty to succeed in it. If you are in trade, you 
ought to acquire a competence ; if you are in a pro- 
fession, you ought to be an honor to it, — you ought 
to gain a large reputation and a lucrative business ; 
if you are a mechanic, you ought to command the 
highest wages and the best situations. These are 
the prizes towards which you are pressing. So run 
that you may obtain them. But bear in mind that 
there is only one path that will lead you safely to 
them. That is the straight road of Christian integ- 
rity. If you run in any other way, it will be infi- 
nitely worse for you than if you had never started. 
Your success would be like that of an army which 
should capture a city infected with the plague, and 
perish on the very threshold of its victory. You may 
be rich, renowned, powerful in the world ; but what 
are riches worth, when the pure gold of the heart is 
turned to dross ? What is the value of renown, when 



128 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

your name has never been spoken in the presence 
of the angels of God ? What can you do with power, 
when your spirit is palsied and shorn of its strength ? 

But some of you are answering me after this fash- 
ion : " That is good theory, but will it work ? Is 
not this the language of enthusiasm rather than of 
practical sense? Can a man succeed — that is the 
question — upon such a basis of principle ? Is it 
possible, in this world, with perfect honesty and 
truthfulness, and by loving one's neighbor as one's 
self, to gain wealth or eminence ? Is it not necessary 
to deviate from these strict rules occasionally, in or- 
der to succeed? We are assured that success is a 
duty. Then we are commanded to seek it only by a 
path which seems to lead us away from success. Is 
not the alternative presented to us, — dishonesty or 
failure?" 

So they all say, young folks, — so they all say. You 
will hear this cry every day on every street of every 
town in the land : " It is utterly useless for me to try 
to be perfectly honest and fair in my business ; I can- 
not succeed if I do." I doubt not these opinions are 
sincerely held by many persons. But I take the lib- 
erty of dissenting from them in toto. I believe that 
success is nearer and surer by the way of honesty 
than by any other way. Indeed, by the ordinary 
courses it does not seem to be very near nor very cer- 



Success. 



129 



tain. The commercial statistics tell us that ninety- 
eight out of every hundred men who embark in trade 
fail at least once during their business life. The fig- 
ures seem incredible, but if I am rightly informed 
they are perfectly reliable. Now this does not speak 
well for the present methods of commercial manage- 
ment. If the cheating and the overreaching which 
they say are necessary to success will not do better 
than this for men, I think it high time their expedi- 
ency were called in question. I do not believe many 
more than ninety-eight men in every hundred would 
fail if all adopted the golden rule as their guide in 
business. Do you? 

To all this some tough old sinners will reply with 
a sneer. " How knoweth this man all these things ? " 
they will demand. " Is he not venturing beyond his 
depth ? What does a parson know about trade ? " I 
will tell you, good my friends, one thing that I do 
know, and that is, that God, and not the Devil, is the 
deity who rules the universe. I know that God loves 
integrity and benevolence ; that he commands us all to 
love them and to practise them ; and I have no doubt 
that he will take care of us if we do. I know that 
it is safer in all respects to do exactly right and trust 
the issue in his hands, than it is to follow the dictates 
of dishonest expediency. When a man adopts the 
theory that unfair dealing is necessary to success, does 
6* 1 



130 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

he not actually proclaim it to be his faith that the 
Devil is greater than God ? This is the creed of every 
unprincipled man, reduced to its simplest terms. 
Thousands who have never openly confessed it 
show by their actions that they believe it. It is th 
one grand heresy against which all good men musi 
combine to fight till it is exterminated. But I do not 
build on simple theory in this matter. The facts are 
on my side. If you go through the land, and pick 
out the men who have been most successful in a ma- 
terial point of view, you will find that the great ma- 
jority of them have adhered rigidly to the principles 
of integrity in all their transactions. There is no 
need that I should mention the name of the most 
successful merchant in the land. You all know who 
he is. If I am rightly informed, his business has 
always been conducted with perfect honesty. His 
salesmen are instructed to tell the exact truth with 
regard to every article they sell ; never to conceal its 
defects, never to misrepresent its quality. Any dis- 
obedience of this order is followed by prompt dismis- 
sal from his employ. When the sharpers and trick- 
sters of trade can point to a man who has built up a 
colossal fortune like his by dishonesty, it will be time 
for us to begin to pay some heed to their theories. I 
know that men have sometimes acquired wealth by un- 
fair means, but in the majority of cases they have lost 



i 



Success, 131 

it about as quickly as they gained it. It seems to be 
hard to keep the spoils of dishonesty. 

Neither is there any need that I should mention the 
name of the most successful statesman of this age. 
Is it not written upon all our hearts ? And to what 
must his success be attributed ? Why did the people 
of every land love him so well and moura him so ten- 
derly ? It was not because of his great intellect. For 
although his mental endowments were of no mean 
order, although his perceptions were clear and his 
judgment was sound, there were many others in the 
nation who were fully his equals in these respects 
Neither was it because of his kindness of heart ; for 
though there have been few among our public men 
whose hearts were freer of malice or fuller of charity 
than his, yet these qualities would not have gained 
him the reverence that the people so heartily paid 
him. His rugged strength of mind, and his unaffected 
tenderness of heart, were indeed among his prominent 
characteristics ; but we do not feel that these are the 
differential faculties that singled him out from his 
fellows and made our love for him so strong and our 
sorrow for him so deep. The great secret of his suc- 
cess in life, and of the homage paid him at death, is 
found in his unspotted integrity. This it was that car- 
ried this poor boy up through legislatures and courts 
and congresses to the highest place in the nation. The 



132 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

homely sobriquet of " Honest Abe " was a charm to 
conjure with. The historian of the future who shall 
explain the reason of Mr. Lincoln's repeated elevation 
to office, and the meaning of the wonderful pageant 
of mourning that filled the land at his death, will say 
without hesitation that his sterling honesty was the 
foundation of it all. 

" Such was he ; his work is done. 
But while the races of mankind endure, 
Let his great example stand 
Colossal, seen of every land, 
And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 
Till in all lands, and through all human story, 
The path of duty is the way to glory." 

When the political jugglers of the land can point 
to one of their kind who has reached an eminence 
as high as that upon which Lincoln stood and shall 
stand forever, they will have a better excuse for their 
folly than they have yet been able to show. For it is 
folly of the most stupendous sort which these men of 
the world boast as their wisdom. There is no greater 
fool than the man who thinks he will be better off in 
this world, in the long run, if he disregards principle. 
All the forces of nature, all the irreversible laws of 
society, are leagued to overthrow him. u The stars 
in their courses fought against Sisera." The Devil is 
not God, young men, and will never be. And be- 






Success. 133 

cause the Devil is not God, it is never expedient to do 
wrong. 

However, if the Devil were supreme, I hope you 
would not worship him. There is not a particle of 
doubt that honesty is the best policy ; but if it were 
not, it would be worth while to be honest. If you 
are honest only because you believe it to be the best 
policy, you are on a pretty low plane of virtue. I 
have tried to show you that worldly and material suc- 
cess is more certain to be gained by those who do 
right than by those who do wrong, because I believe 
it to be a general fact of the Divine administration. 
But, after all, these worldly and material successes are 
of small value. It is your duty to succeed in your 
calling, but it is not your first duty. The great busi- 
ness of life is to get for yourselves wisdom, grace, 
and manliness. These are the highest prizes offered 
you in the race of life. So run that ye may obtain 
them- 



X. 

STEALING AS A FINE ART. 

PROPERTY is rightfully acquired in three ways, 
— by inheritance or gift, by production, and by 
exchange. 

i. Much of the property now in the world has 
passed into the hands of those who now hold it by 
inheritance or by gift. A smaller proportion of the 
wealth of this land than of most lands has been ac- 
quired by this means, and yet there is much here 
descending from one generation to another. 

2. Much wealth is also acquired by production. 
Those who cultivate the soil, those who dig for the 
precious minerals, those who search the seas for their 
treasures, gain their possessions in this way. And 
with these are properly ranked all those who engage 
in skilled labor of any kind. For though the artisan 
does not add any material to the wealth of society, 
as the farmer or the miner or the fisherman does, yet 
he does give increased value to the material already 
existing. The man who takes a pound of cotton and 
makes of it four yards of calico is a producer as 
really as the man who raised the cotton ; the fabric 
is a product of his skill. 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 135 

In primitive society there is very little property that 
is not acquired by production. The savage has few- 
articles of value save those which he needs for his 
immediate use, and the larger part of these he ob- 
tains for himself. The maize which he cultivates, the 
game he finds in the forests, and the fish he secures 
in the streams, provide him with food ; the skins of 
the animals he kills in hunting serve him for cloth- 
ing; his weapons and implements are fashioned by 
his own hand from the sapling and the sharp-edged 
stone. He has few possessions that he obtains in 
any way from his fellow-savages. When he needs 
anything, he asks Nature for it, and she gives it to 
him. 

3. But we cannot ascend the scale of civilization 
\ery far before we find in practice another method 
of procuring wealth. That is exchange. The farmer, 
unlike the savage, cannot produce all he needs. His 
wants multiply as civilization advances. He there- 
fore devotes himself to the cultivation of the soil, 
and in order that he may procure clothing, imple- 
ments, and articles of food which he desires, but which 
he cannot produce upon his farm, he gives in ex- 
change for them the products of his farm. Thus 
there is a division of labor among producers, by which 
the work of production is facilitated and the aggre- 
gate production is increased. But it soon becomes 



136 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

awkward for these producers themselves to effect 
these exchanges. Living far apart, much time is 
consumed by carrying their products about and bar- 
tering them, and soon another class arises whose sole 
business it is to carry on exchanges among producers, 
leaving the latter free to devote themselves exclu- 
sively to the work of production. This is the origin 
of the mercantile or trading class. The sole object 
of this class is to effect exchanges among producers. 
In prosecuting this work it becomes necessary that 
there shall be a standard of value recognized by all 
producers. There must be a convenient medium of 
exchange, and thus money comes into use. 

The higher is the civilization of any land or age, 
the greater does this business of exchange become. 
Not only does the mercantile class increase in num- 
ber, but the principle of exchange pervades all society, 
and its laws control all men. So pervasive is it that 
political economy comes at last to be rightly defined 
as the science of exchanges. Comparatively few per- 
sons in this land to-day are engaged in simple produc- 
tion. The farmers who do their own work, the miners 
who are digging ore for themselves, the artisans who 
are carrying on small businesses with their own hands, 
the fishermen who fish in their own boats and sell 
their fish for their own benefit, may be called sim- 
ply producers. But when the farmer employs others 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 137 

to do his work for him ; when mining is done by a 
stock company, and mechanical work by a manufac- 
turing establishment, whether incorporated or not, 
then the principle of exchange comes in. In all 
cases where there is a combination of capitalists and 
laborers in the work of production the laws of ex- 
change operate. The artisan or the day laborer ex- 
changes his services with the employer for a portion 
of his capital. It is thus easy to see that a large 
proportion of the wealth of the land is acquired by 
means of exchanges. The muscular strength of the 
common laborer, the skilled labor of the artisan, the 
business talent and experience of the overseer or the 
agent or the salesman, the learning and tact of the 
professional man, as well as the products of the land, 
N and the goods or wares of the mechanic, are all 
thrown into the market to be exchanged for other 
commodities or values, or for money, which is the 
measure of all values. 

Since, then, the business of exchange in its various 
forms occupies so largely the energies of men, it is 
well to study some of the fundamental principles 
upon which it ought to be conducted. The moral 
law of such transactions is simply this : In every ex- 
change each party ought to give a fair equivalent for 
what he receives. 

Now the fact is that many exchanges are made in 



138 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

which on the one side no fair equivalent is given for 
what is received. By presuming upon the ignorance 
of purchasers, by adroit and plausible misrepresent- 
ations of their wares, by trickery and falsehood, tra- 
ders often induce their customers to buy articles and 
to pay for them in money or its equivalent much more 
than they are worth. Sometimes the purchaser is 
deceived in regard to the quantity of the goods 
he is buying. Short yards and light pounds and 
incomplete numbers are given him instead of 
the full amount for which he bargains and pays. 
These frauds in measuring and weighing are not 
so often resorted to in retail houses as once they 
were ; the public is on its guard against such im- 
position ; but many things sold in the original pack- 
ages are far different from what they are represented 
to be. Let me quote from an exhaustive essay by 
Herbert Spencer on "The Morals of Trade": — 

"Articles that are sold in small bundles, knots, 
packets, or such forms as negative measurement at 
the time of sale, are habitually deficient in quantity. 
Silk laces called six quarters, or forty-four inches, 
rarely measure four quarters, or thirty-six inches. 
Tapes were originally sold in grosses containing 
twelve knots of twelve yards each ; but these twelve- 
yard knots are now cut of all lengths, from eight 
yards down to five yards and even less, the usual 



: 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 139 

length being six yards. In widths as well as lengths 
this deception is practised. French cotton braid, for 
instance (French only in name), is made of differ- 
ent widths, which are respectively marked, 5, 6, 9, 1 1, 
etc. ; each figure indicating the number of threads 
of cotton which the width includes, or rather should 
include but does not. For those which should be 
marked 5 are marked 7, and those which should be 
marked 7 are marked 9 ; out of three samples from 
different houses only one contained the alleged num- 
ber of threads. Fringe, again, which is sold wrapped 
on cards, will often be found two inches wide at the 
end exposed to view, but will diminish to one inch at 
the end next the card. These frauds are committed 
unblushingly and as matters of business. We have 
ourselves read in an agent's order-book the details 
of an order specifying the actual lengths of which 
the articles were to be cut, and the much greater 
lengths to be marked on the labels. And we have 
been told by a manufacturer, who was required to 
make up tapes with lengths of fifteen yards and label 
them as ' warranted eighteen yards/ that when he 
did not label them falsely his goods were sent back 
, to him, and that the greatest concession he could 
obtain was to be allowed to send them without 
labels." 
Still more frequently is the purchaser deceived in 



140 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

regard to the quality of the goods he is buying. Adul- 
terations of all kinds are in the market, many of them 
warranted to be pure and genuine. Goods that are 
recommended to be of one material are often of an- 
other and much cheaper material. Cotton is skil- 
fully wrought into silk or woollen fabrics, and they are 
sold for all wool or all silk ; textile imitations of all 
sorts are constructed and vended as the genuine 
article. Packages of coffee marked pure old govern- 
ment Java contain from one to two thirds peas or 
chicory; jewelry that is but thinly plated with gold 
or silver is sold for solid metal ; flour that was made 
from foul and sprouted wheat is marked extra super- 
fine ; indeed, there is hardly an article in the markets 
that is not adulterated or counterfeited, and then sold 
for pure and genuine. It is true that, with regard 
to many of these things, the people have long since 
ceased to believe the representations of the manu- 
facturers and traders, and therefore the deceit ceases 
to be of any great advantage to those who practise 
it. But even if it were of no advantage to them, if 
nobody were deceived by it, the morality of the 
transaction would not be affected. The intent is to 
deceive, to take an unfair advantage, to make an ex- 
change in which no proper equivalent is given. If 
those who manufacture and vend these articles sell 
them for just what they are, and not what they seem 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 141 

to be, no one can complain ; sometimes by such pro- 
cesses a beautiful or a useful article can be furnished 
at a smaller cost, and this is commendable ; the sin 
consists in representing them to be what they are not, 
and thus influencing people to purchase them who 
would not if they knew exactly what they were. 

There are other methods of deception, which, though 
less obvious, are not less common. Among them is 
the practice of darkening the room where goods are 
sold, that people may not be able to judge of their 
quality. "It is usual also," says Spencer, "purposely 
to present samples of cloths, silks, &c, in such order 
as to disqualify the perceptions. As when tasting 
different foods or wines the palate is disabled by tast- 
ing something more strongly flavored from appreci- 
ating the more delicate flavor of another thing after- 
wards taken, so with the other organs of sense, 
a temporary disability follows an excessive stimula- 
tion. This holds not only with the eyes in judging 
of colors, but also, we are told by one who has been 
in the trade, it holds with the fingers in judging of 
textures; and cunning salesmen are in the habit of 
thus partially paralyzing the customer's perceptions, 
and selling second-rate articles as first-rate ones." "A 
still more subtle trick has been described to us by one 
who himself made use of it when engaged in a whole- 
Sale house, — a trick so successful that he was often 



142 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

sent for to sell to customers who could be induced to 
buy of none other of his assistants, and who ever 
afterwards would buy only of him. His policy was 
to seem extremely simple and honest, and during the 
first few purchases to exhibit his honesty by pointing 
out defects in the things he was selling, and then, 
having gained the customer's confidence, he pro- 
ceeded to pass off upon him inferior goods at supe- 
rior prices." 

With all these ruses and subterfuges there is no 
small amount of square lying. " Is this all wool ? " 
asks the customer. " Yes ; all wool, every thread of 
it," answers the salesman, knowing perfectly that 
there are many threads of other material in it. And 
there is an impression that this kind of falsehood is 
venial. Men who would not be guilty of an untruth 
in any other matter will often tell downright lies — 
lies with circumstance — about the goods they are 
selling, and have few, if any, qualms of conscience in 
regard to it. A young man in a wholesale jewelry 
store in New York was one day exhibiting to a cus- 
tomer an assortment of rings. "How fine are these?" 
asked the buyer. " Fourteen carats," replied the 
young man. The rings were not purchased. After 
the customer had gone, one of the proprietors ap- 
proached the clerk, and angrily asked him why he 
did not say the rings were sixteen carats fine. " Be- 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 143 

cause they were only fourteen carats," was the reply. 
" But you know that we always sell them for sixteen 
carats/', said the merchant. "I did not know it," 
replied the clerk, " and I will not do it for any man." 
"Nonsense!" answered the jeweller, in a tone of in- 
jured innocence. " You must n't be so scrupulous. 
Such transactions are perfectly right, commercially 
speaking." And yet this merchant was, and is to- 
day, a deacon and a very active man in one of the 
largest churches of Brooklyn. Such is a very general 
impression among business men, that a thing which 
wtfuld be utterly wrong in any other relation is right 
"commercially speaking." A man who would not 
lie for fame, for family, or for country, will yet lie for 
sixpence, and have no trouble about the wrongfulness 
of it. Can anything more sadly illustrate the cor- 
ruptions of traffic ? 

There is still another practice in vogue among 
traders of which I desire to say a few words. It is 
what is usually called, I think, "jockeying " in prices. 
Instead of having a uniform price for the sale of their 
articles, many tradesmen have a sliding scale of prices. 
The thing is rarely sold for what is at first charged 
for it. If the customer complains of the price, or 
seems indisposed to pay it, they let it down a little, — 
sometimes let it down two or three times, till it is 
finally sold at a much less figure than was originally 



144 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

set upon it. I have known an article for which twelve 
dollars was first charged to be sold for eight; and 
sometimes even greater differences occur between the 
asking and the selling price. Of course, the sales- 
man's object is to make the purchaser believe he is 
getting the goods for less than they are really worth. 
For surely he cannot desire the buyer to think that 
he charges at first more than the goods are worth. 
He must wish to convey the impression that the first 
price is the fair price, and that the reduced price is 
less than the real value of the goods. This is, of 
course, a species of deception. All intelligent people 
know that, in the places where this practice is carried 
to its extreme, goods are rarely sold for less than a 
fair profit. The custom is to ask for goods more than 
they are worth, that there may be room left for de- 
duction. Consequently many people are cheated , 
for there are many who never stop to parley about 
prices, but always pay the first price asked, if the 
goods suit them. By this system extortion is prac- 
tised upon fair and honest customers to make up for 
the smaller profits made from the mean ones. Al- 
together it is a bad system and cannot be practised 
without more or less deceit or trickery. 

The fault does not, however, wholly lie with the 
merchant. If it were not for the eager desire of 
the purchaser to get goods for less than they are 






Stealing as a Fine Art. 145 

worth, the merchant would have no temptation falsely 
to profess to sell goods for less than they are worth. 
The trader is often led by his cupidity to desire to 
sell his goods for more than a reasonable profit ; but 
quite as often the buyer is led by his cupidity to 
desire to buy the goods for less than a reasonable 
price. Neither party cares for equity ; neither de- 
sires to give a fair equivalent for what he receives ; 
the determination of both is to get as much as pos- 
sible, and to give as little as possible in return for it. 
There is just as much selfishness on the one side of 
the counter as on the other. I have known some 
merchants who entered business with the firm de- 
termination to have an equitable and uniform tariff 
of prices, but who were finally fairly badgered and 
bullied by their customers into adopting practices 
which in their souls they abhorred. How often you 
witness such scenes as this : The customer comes in 
and asks for an article. It is shown him, and the 
price is named. He begins to disparage it, though 
it is the very thing he wants, and he knows it. "Can't 
you let me have it for a little less ? " he whines, after 
finding fault with it for a while. "I should think 
you might throw off a little to a regular customer. 
I buy all my goods of you." The merchant explains 
politely that he makes no deviation in prices; and 
yet the customer begs for a little reduction, just as 
7 J 



146 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

a special favor to him. Failing in this attempt, he 
moves away, expecting the merchant will call him 
back, and offer him the goods at a lower price. If 
that does not take place, he himself comes back part 
way, and makes an offer a little under the price. If 
this last move is not effectual, he will sometimes 
take the article, grumbling, and will sometimes turn 
away in anger, and, though he has been treated 
with the utmost suavity, will tell among all his 
friends what a surly, disobliging trader this mer- 
chant is, — simply because he could not persuade 
him to descend to the dirty business of jockeying 
in prices ! 

" How much is that sugar ? " said a Hibernian one 
day to a clerk. 

" Seven cents a pound," was the reply. Of course 
it was in the good old days of cheap groceries. 

"I won't give ye eliven, but I '11 give ye tin," re- 
plied the Irishman. 

"I only asked you seven," said the clerk. 

" O, siven ! Well, I won't give ye siven, but I 11 
give ye six," said the undismayed Celt. 

I wonder how men can keep their patience under 
all this parleying. Every merchant who attempts to 
do business in a legitimate way must submit every day 
to be accused of extortion ; for every request for re- 
duction in price is in effect an accusation of extortion. 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 147 

If the price is a fair and honest one, no man has any 
right to ask him to reduce it, and he who makes such 
a request either convicts himself of unfairness or ac- 
cuses the merchant of dishonesty. 

These immoralities of trade are not, then, to be 
charged wholly upon the mercantile classes. All class- 
es share with them in the condemnation. You see 
manifestations of the same spirit everywhere. Farm- 
ers, artisans, laborers, professional men, in their deal- 
ings with one another, manifest the same greediness 
for gain, — a greediness that leads them to practise 
deceit and to speak false words for the sake of gain ; 
to get all they can, and give as little as possible in 
exchange for it, without regard to equity. 

Now, what is to be said in view of all these facts ? 
You all know that they are facts, and that the half has 
not been told. It is quite plain that such transactions 
as have been mentioned are violations of the Golden 
Rule. The principle laid down at the outset, that no 
exchange is right unless each party gives a fair equiv- 
alent for what he receives, is only the Golden Rule 
applied to traffic. Every young man or woman who 
professes to be guided by the precepts of Christianity 
should therefore avoid all these unfair practices, and 
everything that resembles them. 

But perhaps some of those who are reading this 
essay do not profess to be guided by the principles of 



148 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

Christianity. They regard them as very beautiful and 
excellent, but hardly practicable as yet. " To love one's 
neighbor as one's self," they say, " is very fine in the- 
ory, but, come to put it in practice, it does n't work 
well. One is compelled in this world to look out for 
one's self, without much benevolent reference to one's 
neighbor." Very well, then; if you do not accept 
this precept, we will not judge you by it. But there is 
another precept, the binding force of which you will 
not, perhaps, deny. It is written in the fifteenth verse 
of the twentieth chapter of Exodus, — and here it is : 
"Thou shalt not steal." 

I suppose it is universally acknowledged that these 
commands of the Decalogue have each an explicit and 
an implicit meaning. For instance, Christ explains that 
in the command " Thou shalt not kill " is involved the 
prohibition of all anger and malice, as these are the 
germs out of which murder always springs. So with 
this command. Though it is explicitly levelled at rob- 
bery or theft, yet it implicitly condemns all interfer- 
ence with the rights of property, whether by force or 
fraud. Every man has a right to the undisturbed 
possession of the property he has honestly acquired. 
The state may take his property 7 from him, but only as 
a punishment for crime, or in its extremity, when the 
good of the whole people may require it. No man 
may take it from him without his consent. No man 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 149 

may gain his consent by deceit or unfairness. He may 
give away his property, but in trade he will not part 
with it unless he supposes he is getting for it a fair 
equivalent. To take it from him without his consent 
is theft, punishable by common law ; to gain his con- 
sent by deceit or suppression of the truth, by pretend- 
ing to give an equivalent when none is given, is theft 
also before the bar of eternal Justice, whatever earthly 
tribunals may say about it. 

Human law is compelled to make distinctions be- 
tween acts that do not really differ in principle. This 
is because men cannot discover with certainty the mo- 
tives by which their fellows are actuated; they can 
only judge definitely of their overt acts. Therefore, 
with regard to the different methods of interference 
with the rights of property, our laws make a distinc- 
tion ; but the law of God makes none whatever. That 
law deals not only with overt acts, but also with inten- 
tions. And if, by misrepresentation or by suppression 
of the truth in a bargain, you get money from a man 
that you could not have obtained if you had told him 
the truth, you are just as guilty of theft in God's sight 
as if you had adroitly pilfered the money from his 
till. 

Suppose you come to me to purchase an article in 
my possession, which is worth, as the market runs, 
ten dollars. If you knew exactly the character of 



150 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

the article, you would not give more than that for 
it. But by plausible falsehoods I deceive you in 
regard to its quality, and make you believe it is 
much more valuable than it is, so that you pay me, 
at length, fifteen dollars for it. Before the law of 
God I am just as guilty of theft, in this transaction, 
as if I had picked your pocket of five dollars in 
money. Or suppose a different case. This article, 
which is worth ten dollars, is an imitation of some- 
thing else worth fifteen dollars. So perfect is the 
imitation, that you are deceived by it, and suppose it 
to be the genuine article of which you are in search. 
So when my price is demanded, and I tell you it is 
fifteen dollars, you take it, and pay the price. Now, 
though I may not have said one word in regard to 
the quality of the article, yet I am just as guilty of 
theft as in the other case. There was a lie upon the 
face of the goods ; you believed it, and by my si- 
lence I indorsed the lie, and encouraged you to be- 
lieve it, to your detriment. And that is stealing. 
Before the only just tribunal it bears no other name. 
<^To take from another his property without giving 
him a fair equivalent, whether you take it before his 
face or behind his back, whether the artifice you 
employ be secrecy or falsehood, is theft, and nothing 
else, as they reckon moralities in heaven. I don't 
think the man who gets his living by driving sharp 






Stealing as a Fine Art 151 

bargains has any better reputation among the angels 
than the burglar or the pickpocket, j 

"But this is not the common estimate," you say. 
"Men do not generally regard such transactions as 
very disreputable. No man is excluded from good 
society on account of them. It is not often sup- 
posed that any moral turpitude attaches to them." 
Very likely not. And that is the reason why this 
chapter has been written. The object of it is to 
warn young men and women against accepting the 
world's teaching on this subject. The wisdom of 
this world is sadly at fault about many things, but 
about no other subject does it weave such a web of 
sophistries as about the subject of traffic. The de- 
moralization of the public conscience in regard to 
these matters is perfectly appalling. It is true that 
there are in every community some men who are per- 
fectly upright, — men who would never, for the sake 
of gain, be guilty of the slightest departure from the 
truth; but they are not in the majority. Undoubt- 
edly this is the crying evil of this land and this age. 
Much is said about intemperance and unchastity and 
oppression, but these are of far less magnitude than 
this great evil of dishonesty, whose cancerous roots 
run thickly through and through society. "The love 
of money is the root of all evil. ,, These words were 
more than half a prophecy. They are far truer now 



152 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

than when Paul wrote them. By these twin evils of 
covetousness and dishonesty more characters are tar- 
nished, more hearts are hardened, more souls are 
ruined to all eternity, than by all other iniquities 
combined. And therefore I have spoken so plainly 
to you, young folks, upon this subject. The plain- 
ness of the truth may have startled you; but the 
more you reflect upon it, the more clearly you will 
perceive that it is the truth. Take, then, as your 
standard of commercial rectitude, not the shifting 
scale of popular usage, but the perfect law of God. 
Keep this truth firmly fixed upon your minds, and 
never lose sight of it in any of your business trans- 
actions, — that cheating is stealing; that with whatever 
glosses or euphemisms men may cover up its deform- 
ity, at bottom it is nothing but the violation of the 
eighth commandment. Don't be guilty of it, then, 
young folks ! Don't lie ! don't steal ! Starve first ! 
You can't die in a better cause. Don't do it for 
yourselves ; don't do it for others ! If an employer 
requires it of you, shake off the dust of your feet as 
a testimony against him, and leave him forthwith. 
The Lord will provide ! 

Remember that all the actions of our lives must 
be traversed by and by before the bar of God. He 
cannot be cheated. Before that august tribunal the 
truth must all be told. 



Stealing as a Fine Art. 153 

" There is no shuffling ; there the action lies 
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled 
Even to the very teeth and forehead of our faults 
To give in evidence." 

Keep that day in mind ; and, though your revenues 
of earthly gain be small, live so that you can answer 
its dread questionings without dismay. 



XI. 

COMPANIONSHIP AND SOCIETY. 

OUR social relations are of two kinds, — voluntary 
and necessary. We are perforce members of 
society. The birthright of humanity we can neither 
sell nor give away, nor can we absolve ourselves 
from the obligations it brings with it. Society de- 
mands of every person the performance of certain 
duties, and these duties cannot be neglected without 
positive sin. Of these obligations of individuals to 
society I will speak presently. 

Besides these social relations into which men are 
born, there are certain others which they voluntarily 
assume. Almost every person gathers about himself 
a circle of companions. With these he is brought 
into more familiar relations than with the rest of his 
neighbors. One has no right to disown any of his 
brethren, nor to shut them out from his sympathy 
and his kindly regards ; but he is not bound to take 
all the people whom he knows, and to whom he tries 
to do good, into his confidence, nor to make of them 
his close companions. These he may select for him- 
self. In the social circle to which each person at 






Companionship and Society. 155 

tatjhes himself there will be a few persons who will 
be especially dear to him. These, and these only, 
will know of his inner life. With these he will share 
many of his most sacred experiences; with their 
souls his soul will be knit in fellowship. I think 
there can be no valid objection to this natural divis- 
ion of society. It is often complained of, however. 
It is sometimes thought that in every neighborhood 
there should be but one social circle, to which all 
should be admitted on equal terms. But this is man- 
ifestly impossible. People will group themselves by 
their tastes and affinities. I have no doubt they will 
do so in heaven. There are a great many different 
kinds of people in the world, and these kinds will 
gravitate together inevitably. Congeniality of dispo- 
sition, or identity of pursuit, will often be the princi- 
ple of selection, and to such selection no 'one can 
reasonably object. 

There are, however, two evils connected with this 
subdivision of society into smaller groups of which 
we have a right to complain. The one is that the 
principle of selection is sometimes wholly arbitrary. 
Wealth, for instance, is made the condition of entrance 
into some circles. No one is admitted who does 
not possess a liberal share of this world's goods. The 
objection to this is not so much on behalf of those 
who are left out as of those who are taken into such a 



156 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

circle. There can be no real society, no communion 
of the higher nature, where persons are linked togeth- 
er by such a bond as this. There will be diversity 
and disharmony among them. They are united by 
that which is exterior and conventional, not by that 
which is interior and real. There is stimulus and sat- 
isfaction in companionship when your circle of com- 
panions has been drawn together by attractions and 
affinities of soul ; but there must be leanness and 
starvation for all the better part of your nature in 
associations of which the only bond is an equality of 
outward possessions. Let us put this thing in plain 
English, and hear the sound of it : " This man is my 
friend." "Why?" "Because he has fifty thousand 
dollars, and so have I." "That man is not my 
friend." "Why not?" "Because he has only one 
thousand dollars." The sacred name of friendship is 
profaned when it is used in connection with such 
associations. 

The other evil to which I referred is the spirit of 
clannish exclusiveness which sometimes takes posses- 
sion of these smaller circles. The attachment to them 
becomes so strong in some cases, that those within 
them have no interest in, and no care for, those who 
are without. The claims of humanity, the calls of 
public interest, the sweet reciprocities of neighborly 
regard, are all forgotten in their blind partiality for 



Companionship and Society. 157 

their own particular set of friends. Care must be 
taken lest this narrowing spirit gain entrance to the 
circles in which our social life is spent. When these 
two evils are avoided, — when these companies are 
drawn together by congeniality of soul, rather than 
by external ties, and when there is no such clannish 
narrowness in them, — they are as healthful and right 
as any other development of social life. 

And if it is true that we need to join ourselves in 
this manner to a select group of companions, in order 
that we may get the greatest enjoyment and profit 
from society, it is certainly true that we need to have 
some intimate and confidential friends who shall stand 
in still closer relations to us. Those who are trying to 
develop the better life within them, who are struggling 
against the evil, and cherishing high aspirations after 
purity and nobleness, who are sometimes cast down 
because of their failures to meet their ideals, and 
sometimes full of rapturous exultation because of 
some advantage gained or some mystery resolved, — 
such as these need friends with whom they can share 
their high experiences, from whom they can draw in- 
spiration and assurance, in whom they can find some 
answer to the yearning of their souls for sympathy. 
The better a man is, the greater will be his need of 
such companionship. But even those who have no 
such exalted aims often feel the need of intimate 



158 Plain Ihoughts on the Art of Living. 

friendships. Almost all men have intimate friends 
And the rightfulness of such friendships will not be 
questioned by any who remember that there was a 
" beloved disciple," — one of the twelve, who leaned 
upon the breast of Jesus. If, then, these voluntary 
social relationships are right and proper, let us study 
the principles which should guide us in forming 
them. 

In the first place they ought to be entered into with 
great caution. In the town where you have always 
lived, and where the people are all familiarly known 
to you, you are less liable to err in this matter ; but 
when you make for yourself a new home, be careful in 
your selection of your companions. Often a young 
person's status in society is irretrievably fixed in this 
way. Upon his first entrance into a strange commu- 
nity he forms certain acquaintances that are pleasant 
to him ; and, without stopping to scrutinize the char- 
acter of the persons, he makes friends of them, and 
soon is seen in society with them. If now, as is some- 
times the case, these are young persons of dubious 
morality, he will be immediately classed with them, 
and will be avoided by respectable people. " A man 
is known by the company he keeps." So it becomes 
much more difficult for him, if he discovers his 
mistake, and tries to change his social relations, to 
gain the confidence of good men and women. It has 






Companionship and Society. 159 

often happened that young persons in such cases do 
not discover their mistake until they are led into the 
ways of their evil companions. You cannot be too 
cautious in your choice of friends. 

You ought to join yourself to a social circle the 
moral character of which is above reproach, and the 
intellectual status of which is at least up to your own 
level. This may sometimes be difficult. You cannot 
thrust yourself into any society. If you have not 
enough of positiveness and personal magnetism to 
draw about you such a set of companions as you de- 
sire to have (and there are few who can do this), you 
must wait until your merits are recognized, and you 
are invited into the good society which you desire to 
enter. But, if you are not invited, wait patiently. If 
you are worth anything to good society, good society 
will find you out in due season, and open its doors to 
you. If you have not the intelligence and the social 
qualities which would fit you for a place in good soci- 
ety, set about acquiring them. But do not throw your- 
self into the society of those who are coarse and rude 
because you can find no call to go up higher. Let 
your associations be always such that you can find 
improvement, refinement, moral culture, intellectual 
stimulus in them. If you cannot have such, be con- 
tent to have none at all. You always can have such 
if you desire them, and make yourself worthy of them. 



160 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

Not only is a man known by the company he keeps, 
but he is sure to be assimilated in his character to 
those with whom he closely companies. If they are 
low, narrow, gross in their thought and feeling, he 
will become like them. If they are highly cultured 
and pure-hearted, he will be elevated in character by 
his relation to them. It is of the utmost conse- 
quence, therefore, that we choose our companions 
carefully, and refuse to be brought into near relations 
with those who are mentally or morally unsound. 

Sometimes young persons are brought, in the pur- 
suit of their daily occupations, into familiar acquaintance 
with many who are not profitable companions. Those 
who labor in shops or mills, for instance, find them- 
selves surrounded by all kinds of people ; vicious and 
unprincipled young men and women are in their com- 
pany every day, and it becomes a very difficult ques- 
tion with them how to escape the contaminations of 
such society. Great care is needed in such cases lest 
you either offend these persons by coolness, or suffer 
in your own character from too great familiarity with 
them. You ought not to spurn them ; you ought not 
to have any fellowship with them. If they see that 
you are always ready to treat them kindly, even to 
make sacrifices in their behalf; that all that is good 
and worthy in them you applaud and rejoice in ; and 
that you are ready to give them every encouragement 






Companionship and Society, 161 

and help within your power when they try to do right, 
— you will have their respect, even though you do 
not make companions of them. And this is what you 
must learn to do in your intercourse with all such peo- 
ple. Treat them kindly, generously, tenderly ; don't 
stand apart in Pharisaic pride, and thank God before 
their faces that you are not like them ; don't turn black, 
reproachful looks upon them when you meet them ; 
give them always a friendly word, and let them see 
that the helping hand will be stretched out to them 
the moment they are ready to grasp it ; but while they 
continue in their vice and corruption, don't take them 
for your associates. Remember the Master, who was 
reproached because he was the friend of publicans and 
sinners, but whose chosen companions were always 
among the pure and the true-hearted. 

It is sometimes inevitable that young people in their 
work should be thrown into the company of those who 
are vicious and corrupt. It is an inevitable misfortune, 
in which, if we act discreetly, we ourselves may be 
kept from harm, and may be able to do them good. 
But we have no right to seek the society of such peo- 
ple, except as we go to them with the direct purpose 
of trying to reform them. We cannot pray, " Lead us 
not into temptation/' with any great fervency, if we 
rush into such temptations of our own free will. In 
associations of young men for social purposes or for 



162 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

the practice of athletic sports, the bad element often 
predominates. There are fire-companies, and base- 
ball clubs, and boat-clubs, and other such associa- 
tions, which are largely composed of dissipated and 
vicious young men. I suppose there can be no doubt 
that young men who care anything for their charac- 
ters must keep out of all such companies. No matter 
how laudable the purpose may be for which they 
are formed, if a large proportion of the members are 
corrupt, you had better stay outside if you are outside, 
and if you are in you had better get out as soon as 
possible. In your work you cannot always avoid bad 
company ; in your pastimes and social enjoyments you 
can and must. Persons are brought much nearer to- 
gether by play than by work, and thus the contamina- 
tions of vice are more easily communicated. Young 
men of good character sometimes think that by be- 
longing to such organizations they may be able to 
restrain and control those who are viciously disposed. 
In the great majority of cases, however, the good are 
defiled much faster than the bad are purified. When 
one chooses such a set of companions and puts himself 
under their influence, he loses the vantage-ground 
from which he could resist their evil doing ; he almost 
disarms himself of the right of protest against their 
iniquity. He is not only among them, but of them ; 
the character of the company attaches to him, and he 



Companionship and Society. 163 

must wear it. One cannot easily stop a swift torrent 
by flinging himself upon it. The chances are that, in- 
stead of turning the stream backward, he will go down 
with the stream. Never join yourselves with any com 
pany of young people in which vice of any kind is tol- 
erated. Never belong to any club or other organization 
in which things are constantly done that must be 
covered up or apologized for. 

There are social gathering-places open to young 
men in every large town where they meet a mixed 
company. The public billiard-rooms, the bar-rooms 
of the public houses, and other lounging-places, invite a 
promiscuous crowd, some of whom are respectable peo- 
ple, others foul-mouthed and corrupt at heart. But 
in every public resort, unless it is vigorously guarded 
by Christian influences, the bad portion of the compa- 
ny will always be the more positive and demonstrative 
portion. The oath, the coarse jest, the indecent story, 
will be boldly uttered, while sentiments of purity and 
Christian truth will be spoken, if at all, in a bashful 
and apologetic manner. Decent people will be there, 
but that which is best in them will be covered up; 
indecent people will be there, and that which is worst 
in them will be openly paraded. You recognize that 
as a fair account of the moral status of most of these 
places where promiscuous companies congregate. Pu- 
rity and high morality hardly ever hold up their heads 



164 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

in such company. Of course the influence of such 
society is demoralizing in the extreme. No man can 
touch pitch without being defiled. No man can min- 
gle with such society without being contaminated. If 
you have any regard for your character, you will keep 
out of these lounging-places. 

A few words now with regard to the choice of your 
intimate companions. The need of intimate friend- 
ships is more constant and imperative among young 
people than among those of maturer years. They are 
usually formed without deliberation, congeniality of 
disposition or similarity of pursuit being generally the 
condition of their formation. Concerning them all 
that has been said of your wider companionship is 
true, namely, that the moral character of such friends 
should be above reproach, and that their intellectual 
capacities, if not their culture, should be fairly com- 
mensurate with your own. It may be further said, that 
such friendships should not be too numerous. One 
cannot well have more than one or two intimate friends. 
The benefit of this near fellowship is in its sacred con- 
fidences ; in the opening of your heart to one whom 
you can trust; in the privilege of sharing with him 
your inner experiences. There are some subjects of 
which you will not even speak to your most intimate 
friend. Even those who have not, like Paul, been 
caught up into the third heaven, have heard sometimes, 



Companionship and Society, 165 

in their silent hours, "unspeakable words, which it is 
not lawful for a man to utter." And those interests of 
yours which you may and do share with your best 
friend, and which constitute the bond of your friend- 
ship with him, are of such a nature that they cannot 
be spoken of familiarly and frequently. By sharing 
them with many others, their value is cheapened and 
their sacredness is lost. You cannot, then, have many 
intimate friends. 

Again, let your confidences with your near friends 
always be concerning your higher and nobler experien- 
ces. Here is the test of all intimate friendships. If 
the interests by which they are cemented are pure and 
lofty interests, such friendships are a priceless blessing ; 
if the interests are low and grovelling, they are an incal- 
culable curse. Resolve, then, that true thinking and 
pure feeling and right living shall be the themes of 
your discourse with those who share your confidences. 
"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are 
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if 
there be any praise, think on these things." 

We have spoken of the relationships which are 
voluntarily assumed. Let us turn now to those into 
which we are born, and from which we cannot escape 
without forswearing our humanity. It is not of phi- 



1 66 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

lanthropy that I wish to speak, but rather of our du- 
ties to the municipality or the neighborhood in which 
we reside. * Most men live in, or in connection with, 
hamlets or towns or cities. There are certain duties 
which we owe to these communities, and certain in- 
terests which we should cherish in them. 

First, then, be always vigilant and positive friends 
of morality, stern and courageous foes of vice in the 
community where you live. In almost every neigh- 
borhood you will find abandoned men who get their 
living by iniquitous means ; by corrupting the youth, 
by vicious or criminal traffic. There are always laws 
for the suppression of such iniquities, and officers to 
execute them ; but laws and officers can do nothing, 
unless there is a public sentiment behind them to give 
them force. If the majority of the community is de- 
termined that such wickedness shall not be allowed, 
it will be suppressed, law or no law. If there is no 
such public opinion, every law, no matter how strin- 
gent, will be a dead letter. What I urge is, that every 
one of you contribute, to the full measure of your 
influence, in creating and maintaining such a public 
sentiment. Be ready to incur any risk or take any 
responsibility in bringing to condign punishment those 
who get their livelihood by debauching the morals of 
their fellow-men. Be positive supporters of morality 
and virtue everywhere. They are the only safeguards 
of any community. 









Companionship and Society. 167 

In the second place, let your influence always be 
exerted to form and maintain an enlightened public 
spirit in the place where you reside. There are two 
kinds of wants to which public spirit attends, — the 
material and the immaterial wants of society. As 
regards the former, there is never any great fear that 
they will not be attended to. Whatever improvements 
are needed in the way of adding directly to the 
convenience or the material comfort or wealth of the 
community are sure to be made. But the claims of 
education, art, and refinement are more likely to be 
neglected. For these, then, I would have you take 
especial care. Cherish the laudable pride which 
delights in being able to say that the schools of your 
native town are not to be surpassed ; that nowhere else 
are the streets so beautiful, or the public ornaments 
so tasteful, or the public buildings of such architectural 
beauty. To live in such a town as this is a liberal 
education, if one never goes to school at all. Famil- 
iarity with beautiful objects does more than we are 
aware to cultivate and enlarge the mind and to purify 
the heart. The connection between taste and morals, 
between beauty and goodness, is much closer than 
many persons think. Other things being equal, there 
will be less vice and immorality in a beautiful town 
than in a town that is destitute of ornament and taste. 
Every addition that is made to the beauty of the 



t68 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

streets or the buildings is a new guaranty against 
wickedness. Men are not half so apt to be coarse 
and brutish in manners or morals if the surroundings 
of their lives are beautiful. For such good reasons, 
young men and women, I counsel you to do your 
utmost, not only to educate the people of the town in 
which you live, but also to beautify the town. Every 
movement in this direction is a step taken toward 
public virtue. 






XII. 

AMUSEMENT. 

IT is quite unnecessary that I should exhort heal- 
thy young men and women to spend part of their 
time in recreation. Nature has anticipated me in this 
lesson, and her impulse will not need to be reinforced 
by any arguments of mine. Nature teaches the baby 
to laugh before he can talk, to perform all manner 
of infantile acrobatics before he can walk ; and the 
man or woman never outgrows these sportive tenden- 
cies, unless Nature is outraged and mutilated. Those 
who refuse to obey her laws in this matter never 
escape the penalties. Diseased bodies or deformed 
and morbid minds are the unfailing recompense of all 
those who deny themselves the recreation which na- 
ture enjoins. 

If young men and women were left to follow the 
impulses of nature in this matter, they would always 
seek recreation, and would find in it, not only enjoy- 
ment and health, but the answer of a good conscience. 
But some mistaken teachers have bound heavy bur- 
dens and grievous to be borne, and have laid them on 
the shoulders of the young, insisting that their sports 
8 



170 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

are sinful; either because they are in themselves 
wrong, or because they involve a wicked waste of time. 
Under the influence of such erroneous teachings, a very 
few young persons have denied themselves all mirthful 
pastimes, and a great many have engaged in them 
with uneasy consciences. Now the fact is, that ^mirth- 
fulness is an essential part of the human constitution, 
and, as such, ought to be properly exercised and culti- 
vated. And he who engages, at a proper time, and 
within wise limits, in any innocent amusement should 
feel that he is fulfilling, and not transgressing, the 
divine law as it is written in his nature. 

I have used the words " amusement " and "recre- 
ation " interchangeably, but we must not fail to make 
a distinction between them. Recreation is re-creation, 
a replenishment of wasted strength, a refreshment of 
the tired or fretted spirit. The worn body and the 
wearied mind need to have their waste repaired, and 
there are two ways in which it can be done, — by rest 
and by recreation. Sometimes rest is needed more 
than recreation \ sometimes recreation is needed more 
than rest. If a person is worn by care and vexation 
rather than by fatiguing work, some light pastime that 
occupies the mind without taxing it is better medicine 
than quiet and sleep. Recreation often prepares the 
way for rest. If you come home at night harassed 
and worried by the day's trials, and immediately seek 



Amusement. 171 

your couch, you often fail to find rest \ you lie tossing 
upon your pillow for hours. But if, before retiring, 
you spend a little time in some harmless diversion, by 
which your mind is taken off the rack upon which it 
has been stretched through the day, and gently exer- 
cised in other directions, you will afterward immedi- 
ately fall into refreshing sleep. 

By amusements I mean the games, pastimes, or 
diversions in which we find recreation. Recreation 
is the end sought; amusement the means by which 
we seek it. This distinction is not always made 
in the use of these terms, but I think it should be 
made. •* 

Recreation is therefore only for the sake of health ; 
amusements are only for the sake of recreation. The 
mirthful faculties may be exercised so excessively as 
to produce weariness instead of refreshment ; any 
such exercise of them is not recreation, but dissi- 
pation. Recreation is right ; dissipation is wrong. 
When amusements are resorted to for purposes of 
recreation, they are good ; when they are suffered to 
tax the strength, or when they are merely a contri- 
vance for killing time, they are evil. 

Recreation may therefore be commended without 
any qualifications. Whatever helps to replenish the 
wasted energies of the body or the mind is excellent, 
just in proportion as it produces that result. If there 



172 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

are faculties in our natures which have restorative 
functions, we ought to allow them free development 
and healthy exercise. Different persons will of course 
need different kinds of recreation. They whose em- 
ployments are sedentary should have gymnastic ex- 
ercise, out of doors if possible ; those who are em- 
ployed in active work should have lighter pastimes. 
Those whose work makes them sluggish and stupid 
may profitably seek diversions in which there is some 
excitement ; those whose work taxes their nerves 
should always have quiet sports. A bookkeeper or 
a bank-teller or a student would not find the game 
of chess a profitable pastime ; it requires too much 
of mental activity and concentration to answer his 
needs ; such sports as bowling, or base-ball, or cro- 
quet would be healthier for him ; while, on the 
other hand, for a carpenter, or a brick-layer, or a 
farmer, the game of chess would be better than those 
athletic games. 

Some persons allow recreation, but condemn amuse- 
ment. They acknowledge that we need not only rest, 
but a change of activity ; but they insist that the 
change of activity ought not to be from toil to amuse- 
ment, but from one kind of toil to another. They 
say, for example, that if a man has been working 
hard upon the shoe-bench all day, he may find recrea- 
tion by hoeing in his garden after the day's work is 



Amusement. 173 

done ; or if he has been poring over Latin commen- 
taries and metaphysical theologies all day in his study, 
he may find solace and refreshment in sawing wood 
an hour or two. These persons forget that the mind 
needs diversion as much as the body needs exercise. 
Sawing wood is a good physical exercise, but I have 
never considered it a diversion. The student or the 
professional man might profitably spend part of his 
leisure in sawing wood, but part of it should also be 
spent in some occupation that will afford a gentle 
exhilaration to his mind. Persons who are in health 
need such pastimes to preserve their health ; but 
those whose health is impaired need them far more. 
Take the case of a minister, whose digestive and 
nervous systems have become considerably impaired, 
but who is still engaged in his professional labor. 
The physical derangement from which he is suffer- 
ing will be very likely to make him work intemper- 
ately when he does work ; his mind will be intensely 
active in his study and his ministration, and when 
he ceases from his labors and devotions he will in- 
evitably fall to thinking of himself. He will watch 
his pulse, note all the symptoms of his case, and 
brood over his disordered functions till he gets him- 
self into a pitiable condition. Now to prescribe phys- 
ical exercise for such a patient is not enough. If 
the man goes walking, he will count his respirations 



174 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

while he walks. He needs diversion for his mind 
quite as much as exercise for his body. If he could 
be induced to engage with zest for a part of every 
day in some innocent game, by which his mind could 
be withdrawn for a short time from the two objects 
which absorb it, — his work and himself,— there might 
be some hope for a restoration of his health ; other- 
wise, his case is hopeless. And yet if such a remedy 
is suggested to such a person, you will often get 
the reply that a Christian ought to find refreshment 
enough in religious acts and exercises, without resort- 
ing to such worldly amusements. He will tell you 
that " it is an insult to Christianity and its Author to 
say that it does not afford those joys which will satis- 
fy an immortal mind." Could there be greater infatu- 
ation than this ? No man can have religion enough 
to keep him from starving if he does not eat, nor to 
keep him from being an ignoramus if he does not 
study. "In him we live," but only by using the 
means which he has ordained to preserve life. And 
it is no more an insult to the Author of Christianity 
to use the faculties and facilities which he has fur- 
nished for the refreshment of the mind, than it is to 
eat when we are hungry. 

Among those persons who believe that amusements 
are necessary, there has been much controversy as to 
certain kinds of amusement. It seems to me that 



Amusement. 175 

the rules and restrictions laid down have not always 
been such as to commend themselves to the judg- 
ment of young persons. Certain amusements have 
been freely allowed, while others, which do not ap- 
pear to differ from them in any essential respect, 
have been positively forbidden. For instance, domi- 
noes have been excluded from very few Christian 
families, while cards have generally been disallowed. 
Why are games at cards forbidden ? Because they 
are games of chance ? So are games with dominoes. 
Is it because cards have often been used for gaming 
purposes, or because they are often found in vile 
places ? But in every low groggery in the land men 
gamble for drink with dominoes. I suppose it is 
generally known that some of the common games at 
cards can be played with dominoes. I have known 
persons who played euchre with dominoes, and thought 
it no harm, but who would have been shocked at the 
idea of playing euchre with cards. 

" And that 's the difference, you see, 
'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee." 

There has been too much of this incoherent and 
illogical talk about these various amusements. If I 
should tell you, young men and women, that domi- 
noes and backgammon and base-ball and skating are 
innocent amusements, and should forbid cards and 



176 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

billiards and bowling and dancing, I could not give 
you a single reason for my counsel. There is not a 
single thing to be said in favor of the amusements first 
mentioned which cannot be said in favor of those 
last mentioned ; there is not a single objection to be 
brought against the last four which does not apply 
with equal force to the first four. Are these fasci- 
nating? Those are equally fascinating. Are these 
used for gambling purposes ? No more than those. 
Do these lead to shameful excesses ? The excesses 
to which those lead are every whit as bad. You 
know all this as well as I do. And therefore if I 
allow the one class and forbid the other, you know 
I am speaking sophistry. I shall give you no such 
counsel. All these amusements mentioned are equally 
innocent. All of them are grossly abused. The good 
that is in them all you may enjoy. The evils con- 
nected with them all you ought to shun. 

I have said that dancing is an innocent amusement, 
but that statement needs qualification. What I want 
to say on this point has been well said by another, 
and I shall quote : " There are two classes of dances 
in vogue, entirely different in their character, — the 
one called the square dances, the other the round 
dances. In the former are cotillons, quadrilles, and the 
old contra dances ; in the latter, the waltzes, polkas, 
and such like. In the former, the sexes meet with 



Amusement. 177 

perfect propriety ; in the latter, they publicly embrace. 
The former are modest, the latter immodest and still 
worse. In regard to these latter, a Christian ought 
not to hesitate an instant any more than he should 
about thieving or lying. It is a fearful thing that 
fashion has so perverted the sense of Christian par- 
ents as to allow this enormity to be practised in their 
houses and by their own children. The foundation 
for the vast amount of domestic misery and domestic 
crime, which startles us often in its public outcrop- 
pings, was laid when parents allowed the sacredness 
of their daughters' persons and the purity of their 
maiden instincts to be rudely shocked in the waltz." * 
With this qualification, which is a very important one, 
dancing, like the other amusements mentioned, may 
be pronounced innocent and good in itself. The 
round dances are essentially vile ; the square dances 
are only evil in their abuses. 

This is the truth with regard to these amusements, 
I believe ; but the common saying is that you are not 
to be trusted with the truth. I am not afraid to trust 
you. They say that if liberty is given you, some of 
you will take license. Some of you will take license 
whether liberty is given you or not ; but I don't believe 
you will be any more likely to take license because 
liberty is given. They tell you that you have no con- 

* Crosby's Social Hints to Young Christians, p. 46. 



1/8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

trol over yourselves in these things ; that if you once 
get a taste of these forbidden amusements, you will rush 
into all manner of injurious excesses. I say you can 
and must govern yourselves in the use of every one of 
them. This gospel of imbecility has been preached 
long enough. You have been diligently persuaded to 
believe that you are mere puppets in the hands of cir- 
cumstance ; that you can make no effectual resistance 
against the seductions of frivolity. It is abominable 
doctrine. You can use all these things without abus- 
ing them. If you use them excessively, it will not be 
for lack of power, but for lack of disposition to 
use them moderately. There is no fatality about it. 
There have always been, and, no matter what theories 
may be taught, there always will be, injurious excesses 
in amusements ; so there have always been, and 
always will be, excesses in eating. But you are not 
told that the power of appetite is so strong that 
those who get a taste for high living and a habit of 
overfeeding cannot eat with moderation ; you are told 
that you must learn to control your appetites, and deny 
yourselves such indulgences in food as shall be inju- 
rious to you. And yet it is more difficult for the major- 
ity of persons to be temperate in their diet than to be 
temperate in their amusements. The tendencies to 
excess in eating are stronger than the tendencies to 
excess in amusement. We all believe that men can 



Amusement. 179 

restrain and regulate the appetite for food, and that 
when they allow this appetite to domineer over them 
they are guilty ; why is it not equally true that they 
may restrain and regulate the weaker desire for 
amusements, and that they should be held to a rigid 
account for every excessive indulgence of that 
desire ? 

And now, since we have found a firm basis for 
amusement in the philosophy of life, and since we 
have cleared away the rubbish of sophistry and preju- 
dice with which the subject is often encumbered, let 
me say to you, young men and women, that the perils 
connected with your amusements are manifold and 
grave. I have no doubt that the great majority of the 
young persons who will read these words are injured 
rather than benefited by amusement. There, are 
many men and women in middle life who take too 
little time for play ; but there are very few young peo- 
ple against whom this accusation can be brought. 
Most of you devote too much time and thought to 
your sports. Many of you are so absorbed in them 
that you have little time or thought for anything else. 
Some of you do absolutely nothing but amuse your- 
selves. Dress and frolic are the chief delight and the 
sole employment of some of you. This is all wrong 
and ruinous. To live as some persons do live, "just 
for the fun of it," is to abuse and destroy all the bet- 



180 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ter parts of life. Those who do not work have no 
right to play. When amusements serve as a recrea- 
tion for tired workers, they are right and beneficial. 
When they are employed by idlers to pass away time 
that hangs heavily on their hands, they are pernicious 
and sinful. Every use of them by such persons is an 
abuse of them. The whole life of such persons is a 
life of abuse. They pervert, not only their sports, but 
themselves. If there is anything more sickening to a 
true apprehension than the life of the human butterfly, 
I don't know where to find it. When such persons 
come to the final retrospect, — when the wasted years 
rise up before them in melancholy review, — if their 
sensibilities are not wholly obliterated, their memories 
must be unutterably bitter. Do any of you desire to 
share that unavailing sorrow? 

Work is not only a necessity, it is a privilege and a 
bequest. It is the birthright glory of every man and 
woman. The burden of toil might have been lighter 
if man had never fallen, but the need of toil in devel- 
oping the body and the mind is not a need superin- 
duced by the fall. It belongs to the original condi- 
tions of our nature. It is through work, either of the 
brain or the hands, that we get not only daily bread, 
but capacity and culture. Work is the chief purely 
human instrumentality for the attainment of these 
higher ends. No man or woman has any right to 



Amusement. 181 

attempt to live without some useful employment. 
Amusement must be resorted to only as relaxation 
in labor, only as a help to labor. It is not the main 
thing. It is a subordinate thing. If you have no 
useful employment, you have no right to amusement, 
no right to food and shelter and raiment, — no 
rights at all in this universe. You are an intruder 
and an outlaw here, and the sooner you are out of the 
way the better it will be for the world. If you have 
some honest work to do, you may have just as much 
amusement as will qualify you to do your work well, 
and no more. When your play begins to interfere 
with your work, it becomes an evil and an abom- 
ination. 

Some of you do suffer your play to interfere with 
your work. You have some sports which occupy far 
too much of your time. Some of you sit at the chess- 
board so many hours at a time, that your amusement 
is turned into a wearisome dissipation, and time that 
ought to be devoted to reading and study is wasted. 
Others of you trifle away many precious hours with 
cards or backgammon. Some, perhaps, give far too 
much time to music. It is wrong to suffer any amuse- 
ment, no matter how innocent, to absorb the time 
that belongs to work, or sleep, or study. 

Not only time but strength is wasted by many of 
you in your amusements. Instead of being a refresh- 



1 82 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ment to you, they are often a source of fatigue and 
exhaustion. Base-ball, as it is often played, is an ex- 
ercise so violent and so long continued that it is fol- 
lowed by complete bodily prostration. The same 
thing is true of skating and of dancing. Either of 
these may be healthful and excellent diversions ; but, 
as they are often indulged in, they are most injurious 
to health and often fatal to life. I don't think many 
persons could safely skate more than one hour a 
day ; anything beyond that would probably injure 
the health ; and yet young men and women often 
skate five or six hours at a time. What wonder that 
many of them become invalids for life? A person 
might dance for an hour or so in an evening without 
any ill effect; but the practice of meeting about bed- 
time and dancing till about rising time, is a practice 
fraught with mischief. I should like to know if that 
answers the ends of recreation ? Do those who spend 
the whole night, or even half of it, in these dancing 
debauches, feel refreshed and invigorated for their 
work on the next morning ? One such night of dis- 
sipation injures the health more than a month's hard 
labor. Every human being needs eight full hours of 
sleep in every twenty-four, — Dr. Franklin to the con- 
trary notwithstanding ; and at least one of those hours 
should come before midnight. Duty or charity may 
keep us out of our beds later than this, but pleasure 



Amusement. 183 

never. When amusements occupy the time that ought 
to be sacred to sleep, they defeat the only end for 
which amusement may rightfully be sought. Some 
of you are guilty in this matter. Not only at balls 
and dancing parties, but also at those evening parties 
where dancing is not allowed, and where the time is 
spent in other pastimes, you frequently stay till long 
past midnight, — sometimes till morning looks in at 
the window and blushes at your folly. I tell you, 
young men and women, that such conduct as this is 
an outrage upon nature. I have no soft words to 
speak about it. It is simply and wholly abominable. 
And you may depend upon it that the curse of Him 
who formed these bodies and ordained the laws by 
which they should be governed must rest upon those 
who thus persist in despising and defying the plainest 
of his laws. 

Some of you waste a great deal of money in amuse- 
ment. A large share of the surplus cash of many of 
you goes for fun. Sometimes you are led by your 
appetite for amusement to anticipate your income, 
and run in debt. I don't think, as some persons do, 
that all the money which is spent for amusement is 
wasted, but to let all the spare change, or even the! 
larger part of it, go in that direction is evidently- 
wrong. Many of those who earn their own living, 
after paying for their board and clothes, expend all 



184 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

the remainder for billards, balls, concerts, shows, 
picnics, excursions, and livery bills, and have nothing 
left for culture or for charity, nothing to lay by for a 
rainy day. Now, however small the surplus may be, 
most of it ought to be devoted to these higher pur- 
poses. You can get amusements enough that are 
cheap, and you can't afford, if you have but little, to 
spend it all for sport. You want a new book, or a 
picture, now and then ; you ought to have a little 
money to give to worthy objects of benevolence ; you 
should put something by, in the savings' bank, every 
year • to dispense with these things, and to devote 
all your money to amusement, is a foolish extrava- 
gance. 

Many of you are led into bad company by your 
amusements. Some of the sports I have mentioned 
are rarely found in good company. Such, for instance, 
are the games of billiards and bowling. I have told 
you frankly that these games are good in themselves ; 
but you probably know as well as I that there are 
very few public billiard-rooms or bowling-alleys into 
which it is safe for a young man to go. In many of 
them liquor is freely sold ; in nearly all of them the 
society you would meet is far from being profitable. 
Remember what we said in our talk about compan- 
ionship, — that while it is often necessary for us in 
our work to associate with evil companions; it is not 



Amusement, 185 

necessary to have such companions in our play, and 
we must always avoid them. The billiards and the 
bowling will not hurt you, but the society you find in 
the places where they are kept will hurt you. Music 
is a good thing, but it would hardly be safe to go 
into a low concert-room to enjoy it. Social conver- 
sation is a good thing, but the bar-room of a hotel, or 
a country grocery, where the atmosphere is reeking 
with tobacco-smoke and profanity and smutty stories, 
is not the place to get the benefit of it. Billiards arid 
bowling are good things, but if you can't enjoy them 
without mixing in such society as is commonly found 
in these public places, you had better do without 
them forever. Never let your love for amusement 
lead you into bad company ! " Enter not into the 
way of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil 
men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass 
away." 

There is one more evil consequence of an undue 
love of amusement, to which I must not fail to point 
you. That is the frivolous habit of mind to which it 
sometimes leads. It is not an uncommon thing for 
young men and women to become so absorbed in 
their sports, that they lose all interest in serious things, 
and all capacity for earnest thought and endeavor. 
This can never be the case when the principle here 
laid down is rigidly adhered to, and amusement is 



1 86 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 






only sought as a means of recreation. But those 
who disregard this law, and make amusement the 
chief end of their lives and not a means to a higher 
end, often become giddy and shatter-brained, incapa- 
ble of any deep feeling or any high purpose, deaf to 
the voices of duty and the claims of charity, dead 
to all the calls of religion. Perhaps you think that 
you are in no danger from this quarter, but this is the 
direction in which every excessive indulgence of your 
sportive nature is hurrying you. Beware ! It is an 
awful thing to fall into this condition of utter frivolity 
and folly. 

Young men and women, I have dealt honestly with 
you in this matter. I believe these words are true. 
If I knew that they were my last words, I could not 
change them. Now do you deal honestly with me. 
If you take the liberty I give, take it with the guards 
and limitations which I have thrown around it. May 
the Good Spirit guide you into all truth, and help you 
to rule your lives with a wisdom so exalted and pure 
that they shall be filled with healthful and enduring 
happiness. 



XIII. 

RESPECTABILITY AND SELF-RESPECT. 

THE respect of our fellow-men is a possession to 
be coveted. To have a blameless character, a 
good report of our neighbors, is an end often set be- 
fore us in the New Testament as worthy our striv- 
ing. But in seeking this end men make serious mis- 
takes. 

It is sometimes supposed, or seems to be, that the 
favorable regard of others can be won by self-asser- 
tion. There are many who are not content to wait 
till honor comes to them ; they go after it, making 
noisy parade of their claims upon the respect of 
others for their persons or their deeds or their opin- 
ions. They are always anxious to exhibit their good 
qualities, and they are saying in all the actions of 
their lives : " Look at me ! Consider what I have 
done ! Think of the talents and virtues which I pos- 
sess ! Can you despise me ? Can you withhold from 
me that honor which is my due ? " This is the surest 
way to lose honor and gain contempt. By striving to 
exhibit their excellences, these persons display the 
one most glaring of all their defects, and that is van- 



1 88 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ity. In showing themselves so anxious that people 
should not despise them, they make themselves thor- 
oughly despicable. The truth is, tnat while the good 
opinion of our neighbors is to be desired and rejoiced 
in, it is not to be directly sought. Like many other of 
the good things of life, it comes to us without our im- 
mediate volition. We can supply the conditions upon 
which it may come to us, but we cannot go after it 
and get it. We may prepare the soil and sow the 
seed from which this plant of confidence may grow ; 
but having done this, the less anxiety we show about its 
growth the better for us. It is like that seed which 
a man took and sowed in his field, and then, sleeping 
and rising night and day, not giving himself any great 
concern as to whether it was growing or not, he soon 
found that the earth of herself had brought forth the 
life, — first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
on the ear. The respect of our neighbors is one of 
the coyest of blessings. If we call after it, it will 
refuse to come ; if we reach forth our hands to grasp 
it, it will fly away ; and all those who do possess it 
find it costing them neither endeavor nor request. It 
is something like the Australian boomerang, which, 
if you throw it away, returns to you by the very force 
of projection. 

And yet there is much of effort to obtain and to 
keep this possession. All self-assertion and ostenta- 



Respectability and Self-Respect. 189 

tion I suppose to be manifestations of this desire 
for the good opinion of others. Why does a man 
strut and swagger, if not to impress others with a 
sense of his importance ? Why does he boast of 
his qualities and his achievements ? Why does he 
monopolize conversation if he is not desirous of being 
thought the intellectual sun and centre of the com- 
pany that surrounds him ? Why does he talk in lordly 
tones, and bestow upon the opinions of others either 
his contempt or his most gracious patronage, if he does 
not wish that others may think him wiser and greater 
than his fellows ? A man may be conceited and hide 
it j but if he is conceited and shows it, it is for no 
other reason than that he desires to impress others 
with an idea of his own magnitude. 

Sometimes there is also a direct bidding for pop- 
ularity where there is no apparent self-assertion. Men 
seek to ingratiate themselves with their fellows by 
movements or enterprises which they think will re- 
dound to their praise. Sometimes by a free use 
of their money, sometimes by setting on foot public 
movements which they think will be popular, some- 
times by showing favor to individuals, they endeavor 
to win good opinion and applause. I do not mean 
that all who are charitable and public-spirited and 
neighborly are moved by this selfish desire for the 
praise of their fellows ; but that sometimes men em- 



190 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ploy these means for the express purpose of exalting 
themselves. And when it is discovered — and it is sure 
to be discovered sooner or later — that this is the end 
they have in view, they soon find that for all their 
outlay they have purchased nothing but contempt and 
derision. 

Some persons seem to think they can compel the 
respect of others by violent means. If others treat 
them with disrespect, they resent it and angrily de- 
mand reparation for the offended dignity. Whenever 
their wisdom or their greatness is called in question, 
they assume a belligerent attitude, and they sometimes 
appeal to something that is called a " code of honor.' 3 
They appear to hold that if an individual has a poor 
opinion of you, the only way to make him think bet- 
ter of you is to chastise him or to shoot him. Or if 
they do not suppose that the opinions of the offending 
individual himself may be changed by this style of 
treatment, they certainly imagine that those who wit- 
ness their resentment and their vengeance will have 
a higher opinion of them. Now it is quite evident 
that in any community, the moral sense of which is 
not completely debauche'd, such endeavors to heal 
wounded honor will result inauspiciously. Violent 
demands for respect will occasion the loss of all re- 
spect. Honor that can only be maintained by phys- 
ical force is dishonor. I found this so well put one 



Respectability and Self-Respect. 19 

day in a political newspaper that I shall quote th \ 
passage. It seems that an editor somewhere in the* 
West had been indulging in some contemptuous re- 
flections upon the abilities of a certain young man 
who was attempting to be a political orator ; whereat 
the latter took umbrage, and in company with a 
big brother of his visited the editor and chastised 
him severely with clubs. The newspaper thus com- 
ments : — 

" This may be thought very smart and gentlemanly 
by the perpetrators, but what is the good of it ? We 
did n't know till this affair that the man was a poor 
hand at speech-making; but now we are sure of it. 
A man who had any confidence in his own brains 
would not seek to supply the deficiency with clubs or 
fists." 

There are others who assume nothing, but concede 
everything ; who have no fixed opinions or principles 
of their own, but yield submissively to all with whom 
they come in contact. This is exactly the opposite 
error, the error of the sycophant and the parasite. 
These men think they will be honored and beloved in 
proportion as they are weak-backed and supple-kneed. 
They fancy men will honor them for -tamely assenting 
to every opinion however absurd, and meanly consent- 
ing to every deed however disgraceful. They fear to 
take any independent ground lest it should lose them 



192 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 






friends and gain them enemies. The result is that 
the evil they deprecate is always visited upon them. 
They are used as the tools of selfish men, and when 
they can be of no further service they are thrown 
away in disgust and detestation. They seek honor 
and find shame. They expect confidence and respect, 
and behold, they are slighted and despised. 

These are some of the wrong roads into which men 
turn who are seeking the respect of their neighbors. 
Where is the right road? 

There are just two things to be done in order to se- 
cure the respect of men. When these two things are 
done, you will have their respect without fail. The 
first thing is to make yourself worthy of respect. Un- 
til this is done you will not succeed in gaining the good 
opinion of your neighbors, nor can you complain if you 
do not. Sometimes by well-contrived hypocrisies men 
do get for themselves applause, but the disguise will 
soon prove to be transparent. The cheat or charla- 
tan will not long retain respect, and when it is gone the 
contempt with which men treat him will be exactly 
proportioned to the undeserved honor they formerly 
gave him. What, then, briefly, are the qualities that 
render a man worthy of respect? 

Shall we say, first, intelligence ? I think so ; but this 
qualification needs to be qualified. Other things being 
equal, the greater is the measure of intellectual devel- 



Respectability and Self-Respect. 193 

opment the worthier will the man be of respect. But 
it does not follow that every well-cultured man deserves 
our good opinion, nor that no man deserves it who is 
not well-cultured. Before many a man whose learning 
is small, whose speech is neither eloquent nor pro- 
found, whose range of thinking is not wide, I bow 
down with reverence. In order that a man may be 
entitled to respect, it is only necessary, so far as his 
mind is concerned, that he shall make the most of his 
opportunities for gaining knowledge. Those who are 
so conditioned that they are unable to educate them- 
selves liberally are not to be despised for their lack of 
opportunity, and will not be by right-minded people. 
If they only show a disposition to learn when the op- 
portunity is given them, if they are always ready to 
receive from any quarter whatever light or instruction 
may be imparted to them, that is all that any one can 
demand. 

But the qualities that compel respect are not chiefly 
intellectual. They belong rather to the heart than to 
the head. One who is reverent and just and generous 
and truthful and honest and brave will be worthy of 
respect, even though his education may have been lim- 
ited. And these are qualities that every human being 
may possess. Doubtless some by the aid of their natural 
organization will acquire them more easily than others, 
but all may have them by effort and painstaking. To 

9 M 



194 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

no condition or age of man do these qualities exclusive- 
ly belong. Whoever has them is respectable, not in 
the narrow and conventional meaning of that word, 
but in its broadest and highest sense. And no person 
who has them not is respectable, truly so, however no- 
ble may have been his ancestors, however great his 
achievements, however vast may be his belongings. 
Respectability, in the true sense of that word, is not in 
any wise dependent upon a man's belongings. By re- 
spectable people are sometimes meant those who be- 
long to a certain set or coterie, those who wear a certain 
quality or style of raiment, or those who possess a cer- 
tain amount of wealth. But such use of the word is 
little better than profanity. People answering to this 
description may be respectable, — often are highly so, 
— but their respectability does not depend upon these 
outward conditions. Neither does a man's worthiness 
of respect depend upon his achievements. Some very 
contemptible men have done remarkable things. We 
are usually ready to give the meed of honor to one 
who has performed some great act, and there is cer- 
tainly reason for this. We conclude that one who 
could do such a noble thing must have in his character 
all the elements of a noble man ; but the conclusion 
is not always safe. Many who have made themselves 
famous by heroic deeds have been despicable men. 
On the other hand, many who have never distinguished 



Respectability and Self -Respect. 195 

themselves by any great achievement have been worthy 
of everlasting honor. Therefore, in bestowing upon 
men our applause, we are not to look so much at the 
few prominent and famous things they have done as at 
the whole tenor of their lives. And in making our- 
selves worthy of the respect of our fellows we should 
be less ambitious to do some great thing that shall be 
noised abroad, than to act nobly every day and every 
hour; to live wisely and well, though our lives are 
never written by the biographers ; to do right in every- 
thing, though our deeds are never sung by the poets. 
The first condition of the highest respectability, then, 
is goodness. But one thing more is needed in order 
that we may be respected. Good men are respectable 
always ; but such men are not always respected, owing to 
one serious defect of character. That is, want of self- 
respect. They who would be respected must not only 
be worthy of respect, they must respect themselves. 
How shall I define this virtue of self-respect ? for virtue 
it is. That it is a very different thing from self-conceit 
need not be said. The best definition I can think of 
is this : it is the tribute which a man pays to his own 
manhood. The self-conceited man either has, or sup- 
poses he has, certain qualities by which he is distin- 
guished from other men, and these he constantly pa- 
rades for the admiration of others. The self-respectful 
man thinks little or not at all of the qualities that 



196 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

make him to differ from his fellow-men, but recognizes 
certain rights, endowments, and dignities which he 
shares equally with them. Because all men possess 
by nature these rights, endowments, and dignities, he 
honors all men, and what he honors in others he can- 
not despise in himself. The human nature is and shall 
ever be the worthiest and the noblest thing upon this 
earth. And though it is perverted by sin and selfish- 
ness, yet its divine lineaments continue to shine through 
all the disfigurements which men have brought upon 
it. A man may, indeed, so abuse himself that he shall 
cease to be worthy of the respect of others, and cannot 
respect himself; but when one is conscious that by a 
life of faith and honesty and high endeavor he is trying 
to preserve what dignity and excellence he possesses 
in his own nature, and to restore to it all that has been 
lost, he cannot despise himself. He will bestow upon 
himself no more honor than he freely gives to all de- 
cent and well-disposed human beings; to that honor 
he deems himself entitled ; that honor he claims from 
others. He respects his neighbor as himself; neither 
more nor less than himself. He is not forward to 
demand of others the meed of respect to which he 
considers himself entitled, but he will conduct himself 
in all his intercourse with them as if it belonged to 
him by right and as if he expected to receive it. 
It happens unfortunately that some human beings 



Respectability and Self -Respect. 197 

ignore or despise this great truth, that the humanity 
which every man possesses is that in which all dignity 
and honor reside. There are a few who seem to sup- 
pose that men of themselves are of very little account ; 
that their possessions and their accidents — that which 
is attached to them — give them all the importance 
they possess. They will not deign to notice a man, 
be he ever so noble ; but to a wardrobe, a retinue, or 
a bank account they pay all homage. What now shall 
be the conduct of a man who respects himself when 
he is brought into contact with such fools as these ? 
Of course he will neither cringe before them nor flatter 
them. He will be careful to do nothing which shall 
indicate that he counts his manhood of less conse- 
quence than their belongings. If a man has more 
wisdom or larger experience than he, at the feet of 
that man he will be ready to sit as a learner ; if he 
discovers another who is eminent for purity, charity, or 
fidelity, before that one he will bow down with rever- 
ence ; but he will never consider himself to be inferior 
to another, simply because that other has larger pos- 
sessions or stands in a higher station in society. All 
his actions in the presence of such a man will firmly 
protest against any assumption of superiority that may 
be made by himself or by others in his behalf. Still 
the protest, though firm, will not be noisily nor angrily 
made. It will be implied, not expressed. He will 



198 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

not say in words to such a man, " You are of no more 
account than I am." He will put himself in all his 
dealings with that man upon a footing of perfect equal- 
ity, and will resolutely, though with perfect good-nature, 
maintain himself upon that footing. If he is still treat- 
ed with contempt, he cares not for it. He only needs 
to assert the dignity of his own manhood, — to refuse 
to count that inferior to wealth or title or family con- 
nections. Having done this, if the respect he thus 
pays to himself does not extort from others the same 
tribute of respect, he will not be angry nor offended. 
The honor which is often paid to men because of 
their belongings is a stumbling-block in the way of 
many young persons. Those who are poor, or who 
occupy what are called the lower ranks in society, 
are brought into contact daily with those who are 
rich or high-born; and in this intercourse they are 
liable to fall into two errors. They either humble 
themselves before the rich, or else spitefully resent 
the generally received idea that the rich are their 
superiors. These errors are equally foolish. No 
man whose opinion is of the slightest consequence 
will treat you with less honor because your posses- 
sions are smaller than his, or because your garments 
are less elegant, or' because you differ from him in 
any way in that which is merely external to you. If 
any persons do treat you differently for no other rea- 



Respectability and Self-Respect. 199 

son than this, it is positive proof that, whoever they 
may be, 01 whoever their ancestors may have been, 
or however much they possess, they are not worthy 
of the smallest consideration. Their favorable notice 
would not do you any good ; their contempt will not 
do you any harm. And if you are weak enough to 
care for the regard of such people, you are too weak 
to stand alone in this world, and may as well make 
up your mind at the outset to be the menials and 
dependents of society as long as you live. 

But there are few such people. The great majori- 
ty of men and women, in all conditions of life, will 
gladly give you the meed of their respect, if you 
show yourself worthy of it ; and then, with a modest 
dignity, claim it for yourselves. If you approach the 
rich as you approach the poor, with frankness and 
heartiness of manner, you will be received by the 
rich as cordially as you are received by the poor. 
The great majority of rich people are glad to honor 
young persons who treat them in this manly way. 
There are some exceptions, as I have said; but these 
exceptions are of no sort of consequence. Nobody 
wants the respect of fools, whether they are rich or 
poor. 

I must express my opinion that the haughtiness 
and scorn with which poor people complain that they 
are treated by the rich are often the natural result 



200 Plain 'Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

of their own conduct. You say, good friends, that 
the rich treat you coolly; that they take no notice 
of you in society ; that they pass you by in the street. 
But look about you, and see if you cannot find certain 
persons, no richer, no better clad, no better bred than 
you, who are on the most friendly terms with these 
same rich people. It is not, then, because you are 
poor that they do not notice you, for others as poor 
as you are cordially treated by them. Look into this 
matter now, and discover the reason of this difference 
between their treatment of you and of these others. 
See if it be not found in your conduct when you meet 
them. Perhaps you approach them suspiciously, with 
eyes averted or cast down, or with a certain half- 
defiant air. If so, you may be certain they will treat 
you coolly. Perhaps these others meet them in a 
frank and friendly manner, on a footing of mutual 
regard, — neither cringing before them nor defying 
them, — but just treating them as if they were men 
and brethren. If so, you have the reason why they 
are kindly received. This is the right footing on 
which to meet every man, whatever may be his sta- 
tion or his possessions. Stand up like a man, take 
him by the hand, look him in the eye, hear what he 
has to say with deference, answer with a manly frank- 
ness ; let him see that you are neither afraid of him 
nor ashamed of yourself. 



Respectability and Self -Res feet. 201 

Young persons in the lower walks of life often fail 
of the friendship of those in higher stations for this 
very reason. They are thoroughly worthy of respect, 
but they do not respect themselves. They are trying 
to live good and upright lives, and they have a con- 
sciousness of integrity, and yet when they are brought 
into the society of those who are better off for this 
world, they fall into such sheepish or sullen ways that 
one cannot treat them cordially. They are ashamed 
of themselves because they are poor. No matter 
how loudly they may talk about poverty being no 
disgrace, they feel that it is a disgrace, and act ac- 
cordingly. If they are ashamed of themselves, of 
course other people will be ashamed of them. If 
they do not respect themselves, others cannot re- 
spect them. Is not this true, young men and wo- 
men? Do you not sometimes suffer yourselves to 
feel diffident and to act as if you were ashamed of 
yourselves, on account of your conditions ? I must 
confess that it was so with me when I was a poor young 
man, and many were the torments of envy and ill- 
feeling that I brought upon myself in this way. 
Now, though I have precious little more of this 
world's wealth to boast than I had in those days, I 
have learned not to be ashamed of myself because I 
am poor, but to meet all men upon a friendly footing. 
If they choose to despise me because I have less 
9** 



202 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

wealth or less learning than they, so much the worse 
for them. I will not set them the bad example. 
And I can testify that this is a far more comfortable 
way of living than the other. I commend you all to 
try it. 

First, try to be worthy of respect; then respect 
yourselves. These are the two conditions from which 
you will surely gain a good report of all men. These 
conditions are entirely within your reach. When 
Paul wrote to Titus, " Let no man despise thee," he 
gave advice which was entirely practicable. If he 
had written, "Let no man hate thee," that would 
have been counsel difficult to follow. It is impossi- 
ble to be active and positive friends of virtue without 
being hated. But it is quite possible to live above 
contempt. If you cross the paths of selfish and evil 
men, they will hate you, of course ; that you must 
expect. But no man can be so selfish or so wicked 
that he is not compelled to confess to himself that 
twice two is four ; that the starry heavens are beauti- 
ful ; that benevolence is right ; that honor and integ- 
rity are admirable. These are subjects in regard to 
which we have no choice of opinion. We cannot 
help thinking just as we do about them. So when 
men see a character that is essentially noble and 
beautiful, they must admire it ; they cannot despise it. 
They may hate the man himself, and they may affect 



Respectability and Self-Respect. 203 

to despise him; but they cannot and do not. That 
is a natural impossibility. 

That the good opinion of our fellows is desirable, 
we shall all agree ; that it is attainable by all, I think 
we cannot doubt. We have seen what are the condi- 
tions upon which it is bestowed. Whether this truth 
will be of service to you I cannot tell ; but it seems 
to me now, that if some one had made it plain to me 
in my earlier days, it would have helped me to live 
a happier and a manlier life. 



XIV. 

MARRIAGE. 

AT the beginning I desire to protest against the 
irreverence with which in our common talk we 
are wont to treat this sacred theme. I have no doubt 
much domestic misery springs from this unseemly jest- 
ing about marriage. It is difficult to think seriously 
upon a subject of which you are accustomed to speak 
triflingly. Some young people indulge in so much 
foolish banter and raillery about this matter, that they 
come at length to look upon it as a farce, and when 
they are married they find themselves utterly unable 
to apprehend the meaning of the vows they have taken 
upon themselves. 

Partly because of these frivolities of conversation, 
partly because unsound theories concerning marriage 
have gained currency in various ways, and partly be- 
cause parents and religious teachers have been re- 
strained by a false delicacy from speaking plainly about 
this all-important subject, the minds of many young 
men and women are filled with false ideas of the 
marriage relation. There is reason to believe that 
some young persons look forward to their wedding-day 



Marriage. 205 

as to a kind of pastime or holiday frolic. They think 
of it as a time when they shall be released from parent- 
al restraint, and from the old routine of home duties 
and enjoyments; when they shall be introduced into 
new scenes and pleased with new delights. Their 
thoughts rarely reach much further on than the wed- 
ding-day, and it is the dressing and the feasting and 
the flowers and the showy equipage and the bridal tour, 
and all the various sights and sounds and perfumes 
and flavors of the honeymoon, that their hearts are set 
upon. Such notions as these should be speedily dis- 
sipated. Marriage is not for a day, but for all time, 
and in its influences and results upon the characters 
of those who are married it is for all eternity. It is 
not a pastime, but a serious and noble vocation. It is 
not a screaming farce, nor even a genteel comedy ; it 
is a drama of thrilling import. Alas for those who 
have only studied the first scene of the first act, and 
are wholly unprepared for the manifold situations and 
events with which the play will be crowded before the 
curtain shall fall upon the " last scene of all that ends 
this strange, eventful history ! " 

Marriage is by others regarded as a mere matter of 
amorous caprice. Here you find the bad influence of 
the sensation novel. I know of nothing which is so 
effectual as the reading of these novels to derange the 
minds of young men and women with regard to this 



2o6 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

subject. I am not going to denounce indiscriminately 
all works of fiction, for much that is pure and instruc- 
tive is found upon the pages of some of them • some of 
them give you as sound and sensible views of life as 
you will find anywhere. But a large proportion of the 
fictitious publications of the day are pernicious to the 
morals and destructive to the tastes of all who habitu- 
ally read them. They have this effect, not because of 
any immorality or obscenity that they contain, for com- 
paratively few of them sin in this gross way, but be- 
cause of their unreality. There is an element in them 
which stirs up sickly sentimentalism in the minds of 
the young, and develops morbid notions concerning 
the relations of the sexes. This is about the gist of 
them all. In the first chapter two young persons 
— one of each sex — are introduced. Their characters 
vary with the ideals of the novelists, and you find them 
ranging all the way from imbecility up to mediocrity. 
In nine cases out of ten they are absurd and impossi- 
ble creatures, and could no more have existed in this 
world as they are described than a fish could live on # 
dry land. The two perform the not very original feat 
of falling in love at first sight, — if this is not told in 
so many words it is at least hinted at, — and then you 
know that without the shadow of a doubt they will be 
married in the last chapter. There will be obstacles 
high as heaven and firm as fate and numerous as the 



Marriage. 207 

stars to obstruct their union, but they will be married 
at last, — that is a foregone conclusion. The story 
relates in detail the passional acrobatics of these two 
young persons, and weak-minded people shudder over 
the hair-breadth 'scapes, and snivel over the cheap 
imitations of pathos, and lay down the last number 
with their heads full of diseased notions. The theory 
of love and marriage which these stories propound is 
accepted as the true theory, and young people long for 
an opportunity to signalize themselves in the same 
way. So they embrace the first opportunity to fall in 
love • and, following the example of the heroes and 
heroines of these sensation stories, they do many sur- 
prisingly silly things, and end in making themselves 
miserable for life by ill-assorted marriages. This is 
the harm done by these flashy fictions. They vitiate 
the minds of those who read them by depicting the 
marriage relation in unreal colors ; nine tenths of them 
making a mere blind passion the central idea, and 
ignoring the other constituents of happy wedlock. 

Let no one suppose I am ridiculing that pure and 
noble affection which is the first condition of happy 
marriage. If there is anything beautiful and sacred 
on this earth, it is this. To speak sneeringly of so 
divine a thing would be profanity. To lay an unclean 
finger upon the shrine of true love would be sacrilege. 
Wedlock without it is what the body is when the soul 



208 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

has departed, cold and rigid and thickly sown with 
seeds of corruption. But the reality is a far different 
thing from the caricatures which we find in the yel- 
low-covered stories. It grows upon a different root, 
and bears a different kind of fruit. Therefore let me 
counsel you against the reading of these silly stories. 
Though you may be hardly conscious of it, they are 
demoralizing you. Do not adopt for your guidance in 
matters matrimonial the maxims of the writers of these 
novels, nor the examples of the heroes and heroines. 
Any old housewife can supply you with better maxims 
and set you a better example. If you have in your 
heads any of the high-flown ideas with which books of 
fiction have furnished you, rid yourselves of them as 
speedily as may be, and employ instead thereof in 
your deliberations upon this subject a modicum of 
your own common sense. 

These may be called romantic views of marriage. 
Even worse than these are the selfish and sordid 
views of which there is a great variety. Some 
young persons hope for a union by which they shall 
come into possession of fine establishments. Their 
Utopia is a palace among the avenoodles, with all 
the luxuries and splendors, the revenues and retinues, 
which are supposed to belong to that condition of 
life. Marriage is only desired by them as a means to 
this end. 



Marriage. 209 

Others care less for wealth and fashion and equi- 
page, but long to become known by a connection with 
men or women of power or reputation. Marriage is 
only desired by them as an avenue to fame or to po- 
sition in the social, literary, or political world. Their 
motive in marrying is ambition. 

It is evident that neither of the classes mentioned, 
neither those who would marry for wealth, nor those 
who would marry to gratify their ambition, are actu 
ated by the right spirit. These motives, of which we 
have spoken, are found in the superficial relations of 
life. Neither of them springs from the heart's neces- 
sities, neither of them " stirs the spirit's inner deeps." 
A marriage negotiated and consummated with such 
feelings as these as the real foundation of it is no 
more a true marriage than is the union of two birds 
of prey or two blocks of marble. 

Another and less repulsive phase of the selfish 
view of marriage is exhibited by those who marry for 
a home. The young man gets tired of the cold com- 
fort of the boarding-house, and longs for a home of 
his own, a house of whose arrangements he shall have 
the ordering, a family circle of which he shall be the 
centre instead of being on the outer circumference. 
And having decided upon such a home, he looks about 
him for some one to preside over its affairs. This 
woman, when he has found her and married her, is 



210 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

not in any true sense his wife. She is only his house- 
keeper. 

But marrying for a home is not quite so common 
among young men as among young women. This is 
not altogether the fault of the young women. The 
constitution of society is such that a young woman 
left alone in the world finds it a hard and perilous 
thing to live. If she has wealth at her disposal, it is 
not so difficult \ but if she is compelled to depend 
upon her own resources for support, the problem is 
not easy of solution. The callings by which society 
expects a woman to earn a livelihood are so few, and, 
as a consequence, so thronged with needy workers, 
that work is scarce and wages are small. Besides, the 
good name of a young woman — her most precious 
possession — is not always so carefully cherished by 
her neighbors as it ought to be. Envy or jealousy, or 
a mere wantonness in mischief, will sometimes set 
reports in circulation for which there is little or no 
foundation, but which are calculated to cause her great 
pain, and sometimes to give her serious trouble. And 
therefore when a young woman, who either has no 
parents to support and care for her, or who feels that 
she must not be a burden on the hands of her parents, 
begins to study the questions of life, she finds herself 
confronted by these two facts : first, that it is not an 
easy thing for a young woman to gain a livelihood ; 



Marriage. 21 1 

and, second, that society is not so jealous as it might 
be of her reputation. Is it any wonder, then, that she 
is willing to accept the first eligible offer of a home 
that presents itself? Even though the life to which 
she thus devotes herself be a life of toil and care, 
even though her companion may not be altogether 
such a one as she could desire, even though she may 
have no real affection for him, yet of the two evils 
before her she chooses the one which seems to her 
the least. 

And yet it seems to me very plain that for such 
considerations a young woman ought never to enter 
into the solemn compact of matrimony. If she cannot 
take care of herself alone in the world, it is not likely 
that she is competent to assume the care of a house- 
hold j and if she is able to make her own way in the 
world, she has no good excuse for such a disposal of 
herself. Besides, though this is a form of selfishness, 
much less gross and much more excusable than that 
of those who marry for wealth or for ambition, it is 
yet in essence selfishness. Marriage in this view is 
not an affair of the affections at all ; it is only an 
arrangement for shelter and livelihood. Undoubtedly 
many of those who enter the marriage relation for 
this reason learn, in time, to cherish a genuine affec- 
tion for their companions ; but it is hardly safe to 
trust that this will be the result. It is a perilous 



212 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

thing for two persons between whom there is no real 
union of heart to be united by law, in the hope that 
they may come to have a true regard for each other in 
time. This may be the result, but the probabilities are 
strongly in the other direction. And if it should not 
be the result, what lies before them ? The legal union 
will bind them together, and they will respect their 
mutual vows ; but though they may be outwardly faith- 
ful to each other, though each may be studiously kind 
and considerate of the other's happiness, if there is 
no true sympathy of heart, no genuine affection be- 
tween them, there will be dearth and darkness and 
unavailing sorrow in their hearts for which the most 
comfortable home is a poor recompense. Did I say 
" home " ? No ; for though the habitation may be 
beautiful without, and enriched with all comfort and 
elegance within, and though one may have a perpetual 
title to it, and may spend the whole of life within its 
walls, it is not home unless the spirit finds there per- 
fect rest and the satisfaction of all its longings. Did 
I counsel you not to marry for a home ? I recall that 
counsel, and bid you joyfully accept the first home 
that is offered you. Only be sure that it is a home 
for your heart, and not merely a shelter for your 
head. 

Marriage is sometimes regarded as the end for 
which woman was created. Young men are destined 



Marriage. 213 

for the duties of life, young women for marriage. 
The great interest and care of many parents con- 
cerning their daughters has been to get them well 
married. Instead of asking, "How can we prepare 
our daughters to be self-reliant and capable women, 
so that they shall be useful and happy in any station 
where God shall place them ? " they have merely 
asked, "How shall we fit them for the matrimonial 
market ? " It is impossible for parents to have 
such a principle of action as this, and not let their 
daughters find it out. Whether they avow it or not, — 
and in very few cases, probably, has it been avowed, 
— the drift of the tendency will reveal itself. For 
this reason many girls have come to set marriage be- 
fore them as the goal of all their aspirations. Their 
plans and aspirations have hardly reached further than 
the wedding-day. Marriage is but an incident in 
the life of a young man ; it is one of many things ' 
toward which his thoughts are directed. With the 
young woman it is often the single point of the future 
toward which all her thoughts converge. This has 
not indeed always been the case. There are in 
society many honorable exceptions to this rule, many 
young women who refuse to accept marriage as the 
be-all and the end-all of their existence. And so 
far as the false view has prevailed, I am not disposed 
to blame the young women for it. They have sim- 



214 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

ply accepted the destiny to which society has assigned 
them. It would have been wonderful if they had 
reached any higher conclusions than they have. This 
notion about women is one of the relics of barbarism. 
It grows out of the theory that woman is simply an 
appendage to man ; that she lives only for him ; that 
she is not to have any interests or aims of her own. 
Christianity has already done much to rectify this 
fatal error, but much more remains to be done. We 
are beginning to find out that women have souls of 
their own, and that they have as much right as men 
to intellectual and moral development ; that the wife 
is not called to live solely for her husband, any more 
than the husband is called to live solely for his wife. 
And this discovery needs to be published, for many 
have not yet heard of it. 

Keep it before your minds, then, young women, 
that marriage is not the ultimate end. The main 
thing is to live well, and toward that all your thought 
should be directed. To qualify yourselves by study, 
by self-discipline, by courageous endeavor, by patient 
waiting, by labor, and by prayer for earnest and noble 
living, — this is to be your aim. To develop all that 
is best and divinest in your nature, to make yourselves 
what God meant you to be, and then to achieve some- 
what of good in the world by the means which you 
are best qualified to use, — this is to be the end of 



Marriage. 215 

all your striving. Do not get into the way of sup- 
posing that yours is only a related life ; that it has 
no positive importance, no independent aims. I have 
no doubt that God has so constituted human beings 
that they will be happier and reach a better develop- 
ment in wedlock than out of wedlock ; always provid- 
ing that all the conditions of true wedlock are sup- 
plied j that the union is not a mere matter of con- 
venience or romance, but a true union of kindred 
hearts. And therefore I would give you no counsel 
which should lead you to despise wedlock. No other 
of the institutions of society is of greater worth than 
this, but the fact remains that men and women are 
of more account than their most sacred institutions. 
No other event of your lives will be more important 
than your marriage ; all I ask you to remember is, 
that it is only an event of life, and not the end of liv- 
ing. What I desire for you is, that you may be fitted 
to live usefully and happily in any condition ; so that 
if you shall be called to live in wedlock, you may be 
able to discharge nobly all the duties of that relation, 
as well as all the other duties that belong to the most 
fruitful and beautiful life ; and so that if, on the other 
hand, you shall be called to live singly, your life in 
that condition may not be aimless and inconsequent, 
— a melody broken off at its sweetest passage, — but 
a clear, sweet, completed strain, filling the hearts of 
all who hear it with hope and thankfulness. 



216 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

We have said enough, perhaps, about the false 
views of marriage. Let us try to find the true phi- 
losophy concerning it, and the right way of regarding 
it. And first, let it be remembered that reason and 
affection both have a voice in forming this relation. 
Reason may sometimes put its veto upon affection, 
but it must never be permitted to settle the question 
without affection. Neither unreasoning passion nor 
cool calculation are competent to decide this impor- 
tant issue. The first question to be asked is, of course, 
whether there is a sincere and a strong attachment ; 
then the question must follow, whether, all things 
considered, this attachment ought to be cherished 
and consummated. Reason should be allowed a fair 
hearing in this matter. Impulse must not bear com- 
plete sway. It seems to me that most of the errors 
that have been committed with regard to marriage 
would have been avoided if this principle had 
been fairly understood and acted upon. Sometimes 
marriages have been matters of calculation and ex- 
pediency, into which no element of true affection has 
entered ; sometimes, and perhaps oftener, they have 
been affairs of impulse and sentiment, in which reason 
was not consulted, or, if consulted, her counsel was 
spurned. This is where the novels have done the mis- 
chief. They have taught that, when once a passion 
is awakened, it must have its end in marriage, though 



Marriage. 217 

reason and conscience and every law human and 
divine stand in the way protesting. The truth is, that 
when we find ourselves strongly drawn by the attrac- 
tions of passion we must stop and rigidly question 
them, refusing to be led into lives of misery by the 
impulses of our hearts. 

Take a plain instance : A young woman may find 
in her heart a strong affection for a young man who 
is addicted to drink. There may be many excellent 
and attractive qualities about him, upon which her 
heart fastens; and yet her reason will tell her that 
she had better not link herself for life with an intem- 
perate man. Her heart may urge that she may thus 
be able to save him ; but reason will reply that the 
cases in which this is accomplished are very rare, 
that there are nine chances in ten that she will make 
shipwreck of herself and fail to rescue him. The 
young woman who refuses to listen in such a case 
to the voice of reason, but follows the leadings of 
passion, makes a terrible and irreparable mistake. 
Not only in such cases as this, but in many other 
cases which cannot be mentioned here, the better 
judgment should be heard. For less cause than this 
passion must sometimes be denied. There may be 
various reasons, — not in disparity of wealth or sta- 
tion, — not in anything exterior to the person, — but 
in incompatibility of temper, in divergence of aim 



2i8 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

and purpose, which will forbid you to follow the lead- 
ings of your hearts. Reason will tell you that there 
ought to be substantial unity in views and sympathies 
between the married pair, and you had better heed 
the voice of reason, whatever affection may say. It 
is not always necessary that the temperaments should 
be alike, or the outward forms of character ; but in 
fundamentals there should be perfect harmony. "Can 
two walk together except they be agreed ? " 

The person with whom your life is joined ought to 
be a worker. Insist on that. I care not who he is, 
or who she is, what the natural gifts may be, what 
the accomplishments or graces, if he or she is too 
proud or too rich or too lazy to work, you had better 
look further. It is not of so much consequence 
what kind of work it is, — whether it be labor with 
the brain or the fingers or the strong arm, — only 
that it be some honest and useful calling. It is a sin 
to spend life in idleness ; and it is equally a sin to 
support any able-bodied person of either sex in a life 
of idleness. 

It seems to me, too, that personal religion is one 
important constituent of happy wedlock. Perhaps 
you think I say this in a kind of professional way, 
because it is the business of the parson to lug in 
religion somewhere in his treatment of every subject. 
Not so, young friends. It is the utterance of a deep 



Marriage. 219 

conviction, for which good reasons can be given. 
When human beings are about to come into new 
relations, and to assume new and grave responsibili- 
ties, they can do no wiser thing than to seek wisdom 
and grace from the Great Teacher. This relation is 
one of the most important that we ever assume; 
the responsibilities and duties connected with it are 
among the most weighty and delicate that are ever 
placed in our hands, and if we need the grace of 
Christ in anything, we need it in the manifold cares 
and labors of this sphere of life. 

We are all selfish beings; we gravitate insensibly 
toward the objects of our own desire, without much 
reference to the desires of others. It is from this 
source that all domestic difficulties arise. There is 
no possibility of happiness in this relation, without 
an earnest and controlling purpose of self-denial. 
You will need the help of the Great Master to en- 
able you to preserve an even temper in all the little 
difficulties that arise ; to guard your tongues against 
petulance and severity of speech; to keep the stream 
of life flowing smoothly and sweetly. Life consists 
mainly of these little things. It is from little words 
and deeds of selfishness that domestic misery springs. 
It is from little self-denials in word and in deed that 
domestic happiness flows. 

But there is a higher consideration. Friendship 



220 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

never exists between two persons unless there is 
something in which they agree and sympathize. 
Just in proportion as the objects in which they sym- 
pathize are high and noble, will their friendship be 
pure and lasting. For this reason, those who are to 
be joined together in a lifelong friendship should seek 
to strengthen that friendship by a common interest 
in the highest and most sacred objects. And be- 
cause there are no objects so high and sacred as 
those for which Christians labor, it follows that there 
can be no bond of friendship so strong as a common 
interest in the truths and the labors and the blessings 
of Christianity. Though there are many husbands 
and wives who live happily together, and are kind 
and faithful to each other, who are not Christians, 
yet, doubtless, the bond of union between them 
would be strengthened, their joy in each other 
would be increased, their love for each other would 
be tenderer and purer, if they were able to kneel 
together in the sanctuary of the happy home and 
tell the story of their thankfulness and their con- 
trition and their common need to the Father ^ in 
heaven. 

This is not the whole truth about this subject, 
young men and women, but I hope I have told you 
nothing but the truth. For the rest you must seek 
counsel of Him who is the Truth. To him be all 



Marriage. 221 

your affairs committed. From him may all sweet 
influences come to guide and hallow your destiny ! 
May the light and joy which his presence can give 
illuminate the home where you shall dwell ; and may 
His blessing, making you rich and bringing you no 
sorrow, abide upon you and yours forever ! 



XV. 

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE 
MATTER. 

THE pleasant task of the writer is nearly finished. 
The young men and women who have had the 
patience to follow him in these sober studies will 
meet him no longer as " guide and philosopher " ; 
the better title of " friend " he hopes still to wear. 
He has applied himself with more or less thorough- 
ness to several of the problems which young people 
are meeting every day, and has endeavored to give 
them, not only maxims for their guidance, but rea- 
sons for the maxims. It has been his aim to lead 
his readers to examine the foundations of things, — 
to think less of rules than of principles. And yet 
(let me get out of that egotistical third person as 
quickly as possible), I don't want you to suppose 
that principles are safe and sufficient guides. Not 
abstract truth, but vitalized truth, nourishes and sat- 
isfies the soul. All vegetable and animal substances 
are composed of four simple elemental gases. The 
most luxurious bill of fare, reduced to its lowest 
terms, is only hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 22% 

And yet it would not be possible by any skilful com- 
binations of these gases to produce substances that 
would answer as food. Life must take these ele- 
ments and organize them before they will nourish 
the body. Just so it is with abstract truths and 
virtues. Justice, charity, veracity, purity, considered 
merely as abstractions, have but little influence in 
moulding the characters of men. It is only when 
these simple elements are incarnated in a person, 
and endowed with life, that they become forces in 
society. There have been many wise teachers, but 
only one perfect example. Many abstract truths and 
virtues have been announced and vindicated, but 
there has been but one person in whom they have 
all been incarnated, — only one who could truly say, 
" I am the way, and the truth, and the life." 

By this time you have found out that this last talk 
of ours is going to be about religion. And I am by 
no means disposed to believe that the subject will 
be tiresome or uninteresting to any of you. My 
acquaintance with young men and women has led 
me to believe that they are quite as willing to talk 
about this matter as any other, provided the conver- 
sation is carried on in a sensible and natural way. 

What I have said already has prepared you to 
understand what I mean by religion. In my theol- 
ogy it is all comprehended in knowing, trusting, and 



224 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

following the Lord Jesus Christ To know him is 
the whole of religious knowledge ; to trust him is 
the whole of faith ; to follow him is the whole of 
duty. " In Him was Life, and the Life was the 
Light of Men." That Life I want you all to share. 
In that Light I desire that you all may walk. Now 
for some of the reasons why you need Christ for 
your Master and your Friend. 

The first one is found in the strength of your ap- 
petites and passions, and the insufficiency of any 
merely natural force to hold them in check. Need 
I say to you, young people, that just here, within the 
domain of the animal appetites, your fiercest foes 
are lurking? Do you not see, every day, those who 
should have preserved your respect and confidence 
going down to ruin by this road ? Do you not feel 
within you daily the spur of propensities that threat- 
en to run away with you? It is in youth, if ever, 
that men become drunkards and profligates and de- 
bauchees. Rarely do they fall into these snares in 
middle life or in old age. By what power shall these 
riotous tendencies be controlled? Shall we rely upon 
the laws and teachings of morality? Shall we define 
the boundaries within which the indulgence of these 
appetites is right, and beyond which it is wrong, and 
then attempt to keep within the boundaries? This 
is all proper and necessary. It is of the utmost im- 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 225 

portance that we have clear notions of what is right 
and what is wrong. But, unfortunately, people do not 
always agree in their judgments of right and wrong. 
The standards of morality vary. The book of Le- 
viticus in the New Testament, for which one good 
old lady wished, was never written. And even if 
there were a perfect code of moral laws, divinely 
enacted, which covered every possible case of trans- 
gression, it would not be likely to be obeyed. You 
know that commandments of this sort are always 
irksome. You do not like to be domineered, even 
by law. So I say that moral laws and teachings, 
while they are useful in pointing out the way of rec- 
titude, are not always effectual means of keeping you 
in the way. 

The moral law is simply the rule of right, and has, 
therefore, a degree of force with men, as being the 
expression of practical truth which commends itself 
to their consciences. But the law is fortified with 
sanctions. Rewards are offered to those who obey it. 
Penalties are threatened against those who disobey it. 
If, then, the law of itself, considered merely as an 
expression of practical truth, will not keep you tem- 
perate and pure, may not these rewards and penalties 
prove effectual ? If I could show you all the advan- 
tages of virtue and self-control, and all the ruinous 
consequences of self-indulgence, would not that ex- 
io* o 



226 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

hibition deter you from transgression ? It might 
have an influence in that direction, certainly; but 
that it would not be effectual is sufficiently proved 
by facts of every-day occurrence. The streets are 
full of illustrations of both sides of this question, — 
of the rewards of virtue, as well as the penalties of 
vice, — and yet how many there be who do not heed 
them. And if these rewards and penalties, meted 
out on earth before the eyes of men, are not suf- 
ficient to keep them in the right way, it is not likely 
that promises of blessing or threatenings of cursing 
in the future life will have this effect. 

But if the moral law, with its sanctions, is not 
enough to restrain human beings from vice, may not 
a proper cultivation of the intellect secure this end ? 
If the reason is rightly developed, will it not rule the 
animal propensities ? How was it with the pupils of 
Socrates? The noblest and the wisest of all the 
heathens was he. No teacher save the Teacher sent 
from God has ever equalled him. And yet, Critias 
and Alcibiades, who listened with delight to his won- 
derful words, and followed him from place to place, as 
disciples and admirers, were the lewdest and the vilest 
of all the young men of corrupt Athens. Nearer 
home than Greece, and nearer our time than the age 
of Socrates, we may find examples enough of the 
same truth, that intellectual culture is not an effect- 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter, 227 

ual safeguard against vicious indulgences. Many of 
the most learned and brilliant men of our own nation 
have been the bond-slaves of vice. One could almost 
say that, among our cultivated men, vice is the rule 
and virtue the exception. I would not wish to be 
understood as saying that intellectual training pre- 
disposes to vice; on the contrary, I believe that it 
helps to restrain men from vice. These men, of 
whom we have spoken, are not impure and intem- 
perate because of their culture, but in spite of it. 
But they furnish us evidence that the development 
of the mind is not a sufficient guaranty against ex- 
cesses of the animal nature. 

The teachings of morality, the sanctions of the 
law, the culture of the mind, are all insufficient to 
hold in check your baser passions. All of them 
help in this direction, but you cannot rely upon 
them to do the work. There is only one power that 
is strong enough to accomplish it perfectly and in all 
cases. That is the very power of which we spoke at 
first, — the power of the divine life manifested to the 
world in the life of Christ, and shared only by those 
who have fellowship with him. Those who live in 
this fellowship, who are linked with him in their 
daily lives by a close and sweet communion, find 
their whole natures pervaded by a sanctifying influ- 
ence, so gentle, yet so strong, that it hushes the 



228 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

clamorings of their lower propensities, and makes 
them pure even as Christ is pure. Men are not 
saved from such sin as this by a philosophy or a law, 
but only by a Life. This is no mysterious thing. 
The same effect is produced in a less perfect way by 
human companionships. Close friendship with one 
whose heart is pure and whose aims are high will 
do more toward purifying a young man's heart and 
keeping him from vice, than all the words of all the 
philosophers and all the laws of all the law-makers. 
A subtile spiritual influence flows from the one heart 
to the other, by which the whole life is cleansed and 
exalted. The effect produced by friendship with 
Christ is the same, only far more powerful. I do 
not commend you, therefore, to a creed or a cate- 
chism ; I commend you to Christ. Choose him for 
your nearest friend; admit him into all your confi- 
dences ; speak to him often in secret places ; let 
him be with you as you go about your daily busi- 
ness, that he may whisper to you in the pauses of 
your work his words of truth and love. And so 
abiding in him, the lust of the flesh shall have no 
power over you, the chains of the worst tyrant that 
ever oppressed you will be broken, and you will re- 
joice in that large liberty with which Christ makes 
his people free. 

But it is not only as a remedy for the frailties and 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 229 

disorders of your natures, but also as a reinforcement 
of all that is good and beautiful in your natures, that I 
would have you share this divine life. You are strong 
and active now ; the forces of life are all harnessed 
for their best work ; existence with you is at spring- 
tide j the body is healthy, the mind fresh and fertile, 
the heart warm, the spirits elastic ; nothing seems 
wanting to your present and permanent enjoyment, 
and yet there is just one element which you can intro- 
duce into your lives which will add greatly to the 
strength and beauty of your character, and that is this 
element of divine inspiration which flows into the heart 
and mind through fellowship with Christ. Wise though 
you may be in the intuitions of a pure heart, this will 
add to your wisdom ; happy as you are, this will dimin- 
ish your happiness not one jot ; nay, it will augment it 
a thousand-fold and multiply it in an infinite progres- 
sion j however noble you may be, this will exalt you ; 
however good, this will make you better; however 
strong, physically, intellectually, or morally, this will 
help you to husband your strength, and to expend it 
so that it shall accomplish the greatest results. This 
is the very thing you need to render your lives sym- 
metrical and perfect. 

It is just as if Raphael or Titian, or another of the 
old masters of painting, should pass through the studio 
of a young artist, and, looking at a picture upon the 



230 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

easel, should say : " There is much that is beautiful in 
this painting ; the colors are warm and life-like, the 
perspective is good, the drawing accurate, and yet it 
lacks something. I cannot tell you what it lacks, but 
I can show you. Give me the brush and the palette." 
And with a few strokes so delicately laid on that he 
himself can hardly tell how it is done, the old master 
supplies what is lacking ; and as the young artist 
looks, he sees his picture under the hand of the other 
transformed into a new and wonderful beauty. It 
would not have been remembered long, if it had not 
received these few touches. Now it can never be for- 
gotten. An inspiration of genius has been breathed 
into it, and it shall be a treasure to all time. So shall 
that great Master, who paints the lilies and the violets, 
and tints the sky at eventide, retouch your lives to 
finer issues. Let his skilful hand give form to your 
activities and color to your thoughts, and the work of 
your life shall be beauty and joy forever. 

Have you ever heard an orchestra play the accom- 
paniment of one of those grand arias of Handel or 
Mendelssohn ? It was very beautiful, the instrumen- 
tation was perfect, the harmony was exquisite ; and 
yet it seemed to lack for a definite idea ; there was a 
certain vagueness in it, till suddenly the voice burst 
forth, and then you understood the meaning of the 
music; under the spell of the glorious melody the 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter, 231 

wavering chords were marshalled into harmonious 
movement. That was the key that unlocked the rid 
die of the harmony. That was the idea which you 
missed. Without the melody the accompaniment was 
a rambling and incoherent utterance. With the mel- 
ody it was a clear and beautiful expression. So 
though your life may discourse many eloquent notes 
and passages, yet its full meaning is never disclosed 
till the melody of the divine love flows through it, 
blending all its tones into one pure stream of sweet 
music. 

It may be that you have never placed so high an 
estimate as this on the religious life. You may never 
have thought of it as adding essentially to the true 
manliness of your character. Some of you may even 
have supposed that such a life could only be lived by 
the sacrifice of much that is heartiest and noblest in 
your natures. I am sorry to say that you have had too 
much reason to think so. Many good people who, I 
have no doubt, really enjoy religion, act as if they suf- 
fered it, rather. They never talk about religion in nat- 
ural tones ; the moment that subject is introduced, they 
begin to drawl and whine and end perhaps by crying. 
Others there are who act as if they were ashamed to 
have it known that they are Christians, who confess 
Christ very much as they would confess petty larceny, 
with downcast visage and stammering utterance. I 



232 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

would not have you think that these people are not 
Christians, for many of them are ; but the outward 
expression of their religion falsifies its inner reality. 
They are not Christians because of their dolefulness or 
their bashfulness ; they are Christians in spite of them ; 
and these are some of the worst blemishes that rest 
upon their Christian character. There is no earthly 
reason why people should always weep when they 
begin to talk about religion ; no reason why they 
should talk about it in any other than the ordinary 
tones of conversation • above all, no reason why they 
should be ashamed to talk about it. The cant and the 
snivel which disgust you are gross disfigurements of 
Christ 's religion. True Christianity is not expressed 
by set phrases, nor long faces, nor black garments, nor 
drawling prayers. It does not always walk along the 
street with tread demure and grave, as if it were going 
to a funeral. It debars from no harmless mirth, no 
innocent play. 

Remember, young people, the true definition of 
Christianity. It is simply fellowship with Christ. He 
who is the friend and follower of Christ is the true 
Christian. Must it not be that fellowship with one 
like him, — nay, there is none like him on earth nor 
in heaven, — that fellowship with Him will dignify and 
exalt you? Study his character. Read the record 
of his matchless words and his spotless life, the story 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 233 

of his sacrificial death, and tell me if you can afford 
to reject his proffered friendship. Before that Life all 
the world has bowed down in reverence. Men who 
have denied his divinity have made haste to declare 
that no life that has been lived in the flesh is at all 
comparable with it. There is no single element of 
moral beauty or grandeur which does not appear in it 
conspicuously. In this character, dignity and grace, 
majesty and condescension, wisdom and love, force and 
gentleness, are sweetly blended ; in this Life "mercy 
and truth have met together, righteousness and peace 
have kissed each other." He who aspires to be a hero 
can find no better teacher ; he who would learn true 
courteousness can study no better model ; he who de- 
sires to become master of himself, or who covets the 
power of influencing others, must sit at the feet of 
Jesus. 

But you are called not only to personal culture, but 
to benevolent work. Some of you believe that this is 
the work that pays best ; that the only good one gets 
out of the world is the good he does in it. Hoarded 
wealth will soon be scattered ; titles and honors that 
are won by self-seeking are the thin varnish of an emp- 
ty shell ; pleasure pursued as an end flies faster than 
the swiftest can follow ; nothing will remain after you 
are gone, but the good you have done. And that will 
remain forever. Every impulse that is given to the 



234 Plain' Thoughts on the Art of Living, 

cause of righteousness will be felt to the end of time, 
— ay, throughout the eternity which has no end. 
Every truth that is cleared and published to the world 
dispels forever part of the world's darkness, adds to 
the world's light a flame that is unquenchable. Every 
falsehood that is stamped out, every wrong that is 
righted, diminishes by just so much the burden and 
the pain under which the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth until now. You cannot even speak a kind- 
ly word, you cannot even give a cup of cold water for 
love's sake, without setting in motion influences that 
will keep in motion forever. And how much good yet 
remains to be done ! How much darkness there is to 
be scattered, how much evil to be rooted out ! The 
heathen are still in a great majority; whole lands, 
whole races, are plunged in the grossest degradation. 
And one who wants to do good need not travel so far 
as the heathen lands to find work to do. Here, among 
us, swarming about us, are needy to be clothed and 
fed, sick to be nursed, prisoners to be visited, ignorant 
ones to be taught, sinners to be saved. False standards 
of honesty and purity are to be broken down; the 
vanities of fashion are to be scourged out of existence ; 
the bad infidelity that disbelieves in justice, and scoffs 
at the Golden Rule, is to be exterminated ; the super- 
stition and bigotry that disfigure the characters of the 
good are to be banished ; the aims of men are to be 



The Conclusion of the Whole Matter. 235 

elevated ; their tastes are to be elevated ; their range 
of thought broadened, their sympathies enlarged, their 
aspirations purified. If you would do good, young 
men and women, here is work for you. Against all 
these evils you are to bear calm but earnest testimony ; 
and when the shock of conflict comes, you must not 
shrink from girding on the sword and smiting them. 
In behalf of all that is honest and pure and of good 
report you must speak and work, and, if needs be, 
fight. 

If now to this work you will consecrate your lives, 
what more fitting companionship can you have than 
that of Him who went about doing good ? If you need 
his inspiration to enable you to hold in check your 
passions, if you need it to supplement and crown 
your manhood and womanhood, you need it not less 
in taking up this purpose that you will live not for your- 
selves chiefly, but for truth and humanity. It will be 
easy for you to learn to do good, if Christ is your teach- 
er. If you will study the tenderness with which he 
deals with the weak and the wayward, the patience 
with which he endures the stupid and the frivolous, 
the firmness with which he withstands selfish men and 
hypocrites ; the sympathy with which he wins doubters 
and haters to lives of truth and love, — you will learn 
in time to imitate the intonations of that voice which 
spake as never man spake, and to draw men after you, 



236 Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living. 

even as he drew them, into the kingdom of heaven. 
And if you will go and stand by him in the home of 
poverty where he dwelt, in the judgment hall where 
he was scourged, in the garden where the strong heart 
broke under the burden of the world's sin, on the 
heights of Calvary, where his life-blood was poured 
out, you will learn how to deny yourselves and to suf- 
fer for the sake of doing good ; you will not find it 
hard to still the clamorings of avarice or ambition, and 
to consecrate yourselves wholly to his great work, 
though it lead you, as it led him, into poverty and 
obscurity and scorn. 

These are not the only reasons why you need Christ 
for your friend, but they are enough and good enough, 
are they not ? Will you not agree with me now, before 
we part, that they are sufficient reasons, and act accord- 
ingly ? I don't like to let you go until this matter is 
settled. I don't like to think that any of you are go- 
ing to reject his proffered friendship. Those who 
have trusted him have found him the kindest, the 
truest, the dearest of friends. You would love him, 
too, if you knew him. I want you to know him. 
And so when I unclasp your hands in parting, if I 
could place them, every one, in the hand of this Divine 
Master and Friend, there would be more of joy than 
sorrow in the dear old word Good by ! /» ry a 

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